British American Tobacco Uganda (BATU) Share Price Doubles
BATU's share price moved 112 percentage points from 330/= to 700/= today 30th September 2010 on the Uganda Stock Market after more than a year below 350/=.
Though with a paltry 500 shares exchanging ownership worth 350,000/=, this is very significant considering a pending half year dividend of 70/= per share and accumulation of suffocated value through disposal and productivity Leaf production improvements coupled with the exchange movements.
BATU rebirth – LEAF BUSINESS
In the last two years BATU Ltd has been edging more towards the agriculture side of their business and at the helm of this is Mr Fronseca the Brazilian Managing Director, who has gone ahead to dispose off all reminders of the Manufacturing days (BATU closed its manufacturing business Unit due to the an unfavorable manufacturing environment characterized by power shortage and smuggling) and concentrated on the Leaf Business Productivity, with the weakening of the dollar in the over the last two years from 1$=1,800Ugx to 1$=2250Ugx BATU as an export company has reaped also notably proceeds from disposal of manufacturing property.
The Share price was held between the ‘I do not want to Sell now at this price’ and the ‘I want to buy now at this price’.
Near Future
At 700/= and with an upcoming 10% half year price dividend of 70/= this could provide incentive to realize gain on shares bought at 300/= a couple of years from the NSSF. (NSSF sold off her BATU holdings at 300/= under very suspicious circumstances; no prizes for guessing who the Buyer was as well who the MD at the time was! Read NSSF Bond/TBs Dealings)
Brief historic facts:
BATU’s IPO price was 1000/= in the year 2000 it hit a high of 1,700/= around 2008 and a low of 290/= in 2009