THE Lusaka Stock Exchange has posted a huge trade turnover of K581 million due to the massive revenue contributed from the sale of government’s shares in ZCCM-IH.

According to the LuSE monthly news bulletin for June 2015, total trade turnover on the local bourse was K581 million, up from K41.7 million recorded in May, representing a 1,327 percentage increase.

This is the highest trade turnover recorded this year so far, which translated to a daily average turnover for June at K26.4 million, up from K2.1 million for May, signifying a 1,132 per cent rise.

Last October, finance minister Alexander Chikwanda announced that the government would reduce its shareholding in ZCCM-IH from 87 per cent to 60 per cent via the sale of its shares proportionate to the required reduction.

Tranche 1 of the government’s sell-down of 15,850,631 shares out of its total 43,811,868 ‘B’ shares (representing 27.5 per cent) in ZCCM-IH transacted in one trade on the 9th of June, 2015, resulting in a turnover of K570,622,716,

the LuSE’s monthly bulletin for June stated.

“This left a balance of 27,961,237 shares which will be offered to Zambian citizens and other eligible Zambian institutions in the 2nd tranche of the government sell-down.”

And LuSE’s operations assistant Kennedy Kaela stated that ZCCM-IH’s huge transaction could be regarded as “unusual” mainly because the company does not trade that often.

The transaction could only be described as unusual because ZCCM has not been trading that often. Had it not been for ZCCM, June would have been a poor trading month for the exchange,

stated Kaela in response to a press query.