As investor interest in African equities continues to rebound, discussions at AFSIC 2025 in London revealed a renewed urgency to modernize, connect, and scale the continent’s public markets.

The panel “Exploring Growth – Uncovering Opportunities in Africa’s Public Equity Markets”, moderated by Erik Renander, Portfolio Manager at EMIM, brought together key industry leaders to share insights on unlocking Africa’s capital market potential.

Thapelo Moribame, Head of Market Development at the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE), outlined Botswana’s market strengths and opportunities, explaining, “We are a multi product exchange, offering equities, fixed income products as well as exchange traded funds. We are essentially a multi currency exchange, and we offer a framework that allows different structures to be listed in our markets.”

She further described Botswana’s macroeconomic stability: “We have a stable macroeconomic environment, where there’s a strong focus on price stability, all to the prudence of our government. We don’t have any exchange rate controls, which is a strong selling point for our market. Because essentially, if you want to set up in Botswana, raise capital and expand to the rest of the world, Botswana allows for that.”

She highlighted Botswana’s institutional investment base: “We do have a large pension fund with $12 billion at the moment, so that allows domestic companies to raise capital from the exchange with the strong support from institutional investors.” Moribame added that the exchange is also growing its retail investor base so that they can also "support price discovery in that manner.”

Moribame spoke about the importance of listing state-owned enterprises (SOEs), saying, “We do have a pipeline coming from state owned enterprises, that’s really important because there are obviously some assets that have been underperforming, and with the fiscal challenges that have been experienced in the country, we feel that SOEs can tap into capital markets to privatize through a listing.” She also discussed a key initiative to support smaller businesses: “We are working on a big project, which is the SME fund that allows companies, smaller companies, to grow through the exchange. We’ve been targeting family-owned businesses, Botswana-owned companies, as well as foreign companies.”

On regulatory efforts, Moribame stated: “We’ve been promoting the pillar of regulation where we target our regulation to ensure that it’s conducive for companies that want to tap into capital markets.” She stressed the importance of retail investor development: “Growing that retail piece is also important. Retail participation is critical for a well-functioning market.”

Adrian Rimmer, Director of Sustainable Finance and Investment at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), emphasized the success of dual listings and London’s role as a hub for African capital. “We have 113 African companies that listed in London, and that’s significantly more than any other exchange in the world,” he said. “One of the interesting things I thought was the 45% of African companies listed in London are dual listed, and the average for dual listings is 14%, so it just shows the power of what that can achieve.”

Rimmer highlighted recent IPOs: “A couple of IPOs have taken place this year, Volterra Platinum and Guarantee Trust. Volterra has been incredibly successful since listing, and Guarantee Trust converted their GDRs to a full dual listing this year, which has been incredibly helpful for them to raise capital.” He added that, as a cohort, “African companies have significantly outperformed the major benchmarks.”

Maximilian Biswanger, Investment Director and Head of DFS Equity at British International Investment (BII), shared insights on the challenges local exchanges face in attracting listings. “Unfortunately, not very often [local exchanges are] on the radar. It’s more the international stock exchanges with those companies,” he said. According to Biswanger, emerging markets such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia are increasingly interested in African listings, but local African stock exchanges are not yet receiving the attention they deserve in these discussions.

He spoke about the importance of dual listings for responsible exits: “Every time we look at an exit, we also think about responsible exits, and at least a dual listing at the global international or international market and the local stock exchange. For me, that sounds the most responsible exit, because you also give the countries which have built those fantastic companies the opportunity to invest, either directly or through pension funds in those companies.”

Ababacar Diaw, CEO of Impaxis Capital, pointed to the untapped potential across Africa’s capital markets: “We have around 25 stock exchanges on the continent, but most of them are less than 25% of GDP in terms of size." He called for collaboration across asset classes: “You need the private equity guy, you need the venture guy, you need the banks, the capital markets.”

Diaw underscored the need to integrate private equity exits with public markets: “We have less than 15% of exits from private equity coming through the market. But instead of considering it as a Plan B, if you work together, because when you invest in companies, what you would like is to develop the private sectors to help them be regional champions, create job access and create value for the continent.”

He further highlighted the limitations of bank financing: “We rely on the banking system for 80 to 90% of the financing. And the right thing is that the banks cannot afford and it’s not their role also to take all this type of risk.” He cautioned that with the introduction of Basel II and III regulations, tighter credit conditions—or a potential credit crunch—are likely.

Diaw also stressed the vital role of development finance institutions (DFIs) in capital markets development: “It’s in their objective and role to develop the capital markets."

The panel agreed that unlocking Africa’s public equity market potential requires building local investor bases, fostering conducive regulations, expanding product offerings, and strengthening linkages between private equity, banks, and public markets. “We’ve been doing a lot, and we are looking for like-minded partners to join us on this journey,” Moribame concluded.