Uganda: BATU Nears 1,000 Trading Days

Source from:  New Vision 05/31/2009

BRITISH American Tobacco (BATU) is just six trading days away from hitting its 1,000 trading session. BATU, which has gone through almost all the business cycles and persisted, hit its 994th session on Tuesday. The tobacco company made loses, the share price went below the initial public offer price and changed management but it is still trading on the bourse. BATU shares started trading at sh1,205 when it listed in 2000. A few months later, the price began falling when the company started making losses. By the end of 2005, the company's net loss was sh6,035m. The situation worsened when Uganda joined the world in restricting use of tobacco, further plunging the price to as low as sh300. It took a change of management and some shrewd management practices to turn things around. Despite trading no single share on Tuesday, BATU has stuck in there at a fairly impressive price of sh510. Stanbic, Uganda Clays and Bank of Baroda were the only companies that traded on Tuesday with a turnover of sh7.7m and only 13 deals struck. Baroda registered some slight movement in three deals in which 8,957 shares exchanged hands. Baroda has been one of the less active counters. Closing the day at sh390, it had a turnover of sh3.5m. A total of 58,597 shares were traded on Tuesday compared to the 458,050 traded last Tuesday. This is almost 87% fall in volume of shares traded. Enditem