Capital Markets

Host to francophone West Africa’s regional stock exchange, the Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières (BRVM), Côte d’Ivoire has a more sophisticated financial services industry than most of its peers in the region. The sixth-largest of Africa’s 29 exchanges by capitalisation, the BRVM has seen the market value of its listed equities grow over five-fold from CFA1.02trn (€1.53bn) at its inception in 1998 to CFA6.32trn (€9.48bn) at the end of 2014. Although still marginal to broader economic growth, accounting for 12% of the GDP of the West African Economic and Monetary Union and 38.5% of domestic GDP, the BRVM plans to break into the continent’s top-five exchanges by 2015. Indeed, 2015 will prove dynamic both in terms of initial public offerings (IPOs) and developing secondary trading in bonds – a linchpin of sovereign financing in the region.

This chapter contains an viewpoint from Kadi Fadika-Coulibaly, Managing Director, Hudson & Cie.