The benchmark index climbed 0.52% to close with a 13.80% YTD return following gains in five stocks in the insurance, petroleum marketing and telecom sectors. Accordingly, market capitalization rose by 0.23% to settle at GH¢65.22 billion.

Today’s gainers were SIC Insurance (+7.14%), Total Petroleum (+3.90%), Scancom PLC (+1.11%), Ghana Oil Company (+0.61%) and Enterprise Group Limited (+0.34%). Gains in SIC and EGL pushed the financial index up by 0.03% to close with a 5.08% YTD return.

There were no laggards recorded at today’s session.

Trading activity declined with 65,938 shares valued at 76,245.62 changing hands. Market sentiment however strengthened with the aggregate bid/ask ratio closing at 0.2:1 from 0.1:1 in the previous session. We expect activity to pick up in Access Bank tomorrow.

Company in Focus

Access Bank Ghana Limited (ACCESS)

Access Bank reported a 132.5% swing in Profit After Tax to GH¢85.93 million for the first 9 months period ending 30th September 2018, mainly supported by an increase in both interest and non-interest income and an 89.3% decrease in impairment losses on financial assets. Operating Income of the Bank jumped by 40.7% to GH¢244.84 million due to a 15.5% increase in Net Interest Income and a 111.5% surge in non-interest income.

Loans and Advances of the Bank dropped by 25.7% to GH¢885.82 million while Investment Securities and Customer’s Deposits increased by 103.9% and 5.4% to GH¢956.79 million and GH¢2.08 billion respectively, for the 9 months period ending 30th September 2018. Shareholder’s Funds increased by 52% to GH¢708.99 million as a result of a rights issue to meet the new minimum capital requirement of GH¢400 million. Total Assets of the Bank rose by 11.5% to GH¢3.24 billion.

Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited (GGBL)

Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited (GGBL) has appointed Dr Felix E. Addo as its new board chairman.

Dr Addo is the first Ghanaian to chair GGBL’s board since the merger between Guinness Ghana Ltd (GGL) and Ghana Brewery Ltd (GBL) in 2004. Dr Addo is the immediate past Country Senior Partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Ghana and a former member of the PwC Africa Governance Board. He has more than 30 years of practice and consulting experience in corporate finance and recovery, financial and forensic auditing, arbitration, Capital Project and Infrastructure (CP&I), organizational restructuring and performance improvement engagements in both developed and developing economies.

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