VICTORIA FALLS — The return of Old Mutual Limited to active trading in Zimbabwe through the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX) is expected to inject greater liquidity and institutional depth into the country’s capital markets, while strengthening the US-dollar-denominated bourse’s credentials as a regional investment platform.
Old Mutual’s migration from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange to VFEX represents one of the most significant developments in Zimbabwe’s capital markets since the establishment of the foreign-currency-denominated exchange in 2020.
The move restores trading access to Zimbabwean investors in one of the country’s best-known blue-chip companies after its shares remained suspended locally for about six years.
Old Mutual announced in July that its board had concluded that VFEX had developed sufficient scale and liquidity to provide a viable alternative trading platform to the ZSE. The migration is subject to the necessary regulatory approvals.
The return is particularly significant because Old Mutual is not simply another listed company. It is a major financial-services group with deep links to Zimbabwe’s savings, pensions, insurance and investment markets. Its presence on VFEX therefore has the potential to attract greater participation from institutional investors and increase the diversity of securities available to investors seeking US-dollar assets.
A major endorsement of VFEX
Speaking at the listing ceremony, ZSE Holdings chairperson Caroline Sandura described Old Mutual’s return as a landmark development for Zimbabwe’s capital markets, saying it was the culmination of years of engagement between policymakers, regulators, exchanges and the company.
She said the listing would broaden the quality and depth of investment opportunities available to local, regional and international investors and was expected to improve liquidity and market visibility.
Old Mutual’s own decision to migrate is arguably the strongest endorsement yet of VFEX’s development.
When the exchange was launched in 2020, it was a new and relatively small market. Old Mutual’s board has since monitored its growth and concluded that the platform has reached a level of scale and liquidity capable of supporting the company’s secondary listing.
That represents a significant change in the economics of the Zimbabwean capital market.
From a one-counter experiment to a developing market
VFEX was established as a US-dollar-denominated exchange and has gradually expanded its listed securities and market infrastructure.
Old Mutual’s July statement cited a sharp increase in trading activity on VFEX, with average annual turnover per issuer rising from about US$300,000 in 2021 to US$7 million in 2025, while securities traded per issuer increased from approximately 1.3 million to 96.1 million over the same period.
Those figures are important because liquidity is one of the principal determinants of whether an institutional investor is willing to allocate capital to a relatively small emerging market.
A market can have attractive companies and still struggle to attract investors if shares cannot be bought or sold efficiently.
The growth of VFEX is therefore not merely a question of the number of listed companies. It is increasingly a question of whether investors can enter and exit positions at prices that reasonably reflect underlying value.
Old Mutual’s migration suggests that the exchange has made meaningful progress on that front.
The return of a suspended blue chip
Old Mutual’s local trading history gives the development additional significance.
The company’s shares were suspended from trading in Zimbabwe in June 2020 after the government temporarily halted trading on the ZSE amid concerns about an implied exchange rate and broader market instability.
Although ZSE trading resumed in August that year, Old Mutual remained among the counters that did not return to trading. Old Mutual has consistently maintained that it was not responsible for the continuing suspension.
The suspension created an unusual situation for Zimbabwean shareholders.
They retained ownership of a major listed company but were unable to trade the local listing.
The migration to VFEX therefore represents more than a new listing. It restores an element of shareholder liquidity and market choice that has been absent since 2020.
Old Mutual said the migration was intended to resolve the trading suspension for the benefit of the company’s Zimbabwean shareholders.
Dollar denomination changes the investment proposition
The fact that Old Mutual is returning through a US-dollar exchange is equally important.
Zimbabwe’s economy remains heavily dollarised, meaning that businesses, households and institutional investors continue to conduct a substantial proportion of economic activity in US dollars.
A US-dollar-denominated capital market therefore provides a closer match between the currency in which many businesses generate revenues and the currency in which investors want to preserve capital.
For pension funds, insurers and other institutional investors, this can be particularly important because investment returns need to be assessed against the currency in which future liabilities are measured.
VFEX effectively provides a mechanism through which investors can hold equities denominated and settled in US dollars.
Old Mutual has confirmed that trading on VFEX will settle on a T+2 basis in US dollars, while the opening price will be determined by the market.
A deeper market for institutional capital
The arrival of Old Mutual could have a multiplier effect because capital markets work best when large institutional investors have a sufficient range of assets in which to invest.
Zimbabwe has substantial pools of institutional savings through pension funds, insurance companies and asset managers.
The problem has historically been the limited range and liquidity of investment instruments available to deploy those savings efficiently.
A deeper VFEX can begin to address that problem.
The more credible companies that list, the more attractive the market becomes to institutional investors. Greater institutional participation can improve turnover. Higher turnover can encourage additional issuers to consider listing.
That can create a virtuous cycle of capital-market development.
Old Mutual’s wider economic footprint
The significance of Old Mutual extends beyond its share price.
The company has historically been one of Zimbabwe’s major institutional investors, mobilising long-term savings and directing capital towards productive assets.
At the listing ceremony, government highlighted Old Mutual’s involvement in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, energy and housing.
The company has also partnered with government and the United Nations through the Old Mutual Renewable Energy Fund, supporting renewable-energy projects including the solar installation at Mater Dei Hospital.
The country’s renewable-energy investment through such initiatives has contributed to installed renewable capacity approaching 80MW, according to the government statement delivered at the ceremony.
The broader economic principle is important: institutional investors perform a different function from commercial banks.
Banks generally provide debt financing, while pension funds, insurers and asset managers can provide long-duration capital through equities, infrastructure funds, bonds and other instruments.
For an economy seeking to rebuild infrastructure and expand productive capacity, that distinction matters enormously.
Zimbabwe cannot finance growth through banks alone
The government used the Old Mutual listing to reinforce a broader argument for deeper capital markets.
Zimbabwe’s economic expansion cannot depend exclusively on commercial-bank lending.
Banks are important providers of working capital and business loans, but infrastructure, housing, energy and industrial projects frequently require long-term financing that exceeds the appropriate maturity or risk appetite of conventional bank balance sheets.
Capital markets can bridge that gap.
A pension fund, for example, has long-term liabilities stretching over decades. It therefore needs long-duration assets capable of generating returns over similarly long periods.
That makes pension and insurance capital particularly suited to infrastructure investment.
Zimbabwe’s challenge is to create financial instruments that connect those pools of savings with productive investment opportunities.
Infrastructure could become the next frontier
The government’s call for institutional investors to participate in the Infrastructure Fund therefore has potentially major implications.
Government can identify strategic projects, provide policy support and establish the regulatory framework, while private capital can provide financing, project-management expertise and commercial discipline.
The model is particularly relevant to Zimbabwe because the country’s infrastructure deficit extends across energy, water, housing, transport and urban services.
The challenge is not simply finding projects.
It is finding bankable projects.
A bankable infrastructure project has predictable cash flows, credible governance, appropriate risk allocation and a sufficiently transparent legal framework to persuade investors that capital can be recovered and returns generated over time.
This is where deeper capital markets can make a difference.
VFIFC seeks to turn Victoria Falls into a financial hub
Victoria Falls is also becoming an increasingly important part of Zimbabwe’s financial-services strategy.
The Victoria Falls International Financial Centre has been established around the ambition of turning the resort city into a regional financial-services hub capable of attracting international capital.
VFIFC Chief Legal Officer Meluleki Sibanda described the Old Mutual listing as a vote of confidence in Zimbabwe’s financial architecture and said the centre would continue working towards an internationally aligned regulatory framework.
The objective is to create an ecosystem in which capital can be raised, invested and managed through Zimbabwe while connecting domestic opportunities with international investors.
That requires more than a stock exchange.
It requires credible regulation, investor protection, modern settlement infrastructure, tax certainty, corporate governance and a sufficiently deep financial-services industry.
Old Mutual’s return comes at a favourable time
The timing of the migration is also notable.
Zimbabwe’s capital markets have been experiencing a period of stronger activity, while the broader economy has benefited from improving macroeconomic stability.
Inflation has fallen sharply, foreign-currency inflows have strengthened, and the exchange rate has become considerably more stable than during previous periods of monetary turbulence.
Those developments improve the environment in which financial markets operate.
Investors are more willing to commit capital when they can estimate future returns without having to constantly price extreme currency and inflation risk.
This is particularly relevant for VFEX because its US-dollar denomination reduces one layer of currency uncertainty for investors.
The market still has a liquidity challenge
Old Mutual’s return, however, should not be interpreted as evidence that Zimbabwe has solved its capital-market problems.
Liquidity remains one of the most important challenges facing emerging exchanges. A market can list high-quality companies and still suffer from thin trading if there are too few buyers and sellers.
That is why Old Mutual’s presence matters.
A large, recognised financial-services company can potentially bring new institutional participants, increase the value of securities traded and encourage greater analyst coverage.
But the long-term success of VFEX will depend on attracting a much broader range of companies and investors.
The exchange needs mining companies, manufacturers, banks, retailers, infrastructure businesses, technology companies and other large enterprises capable of providing investors with diversified exposure to the Zimbabwean economy.
The return also repairs a historical market rupture
There is a deeper institutional significance to Old Mutual’s return.
The 2020 suspension demonstrated the vulnerability of Zimbabwe’s capital markets to policy interventions undertaken during periods of monetary instability.
Old Mutual’s migration to VFEX offers a different model.
Rather than leaving the Zimbabwean market altogether, the company is moving to an exchange designed specifically around US-dollar trading and settlement.
That creates an opportunity to rebuild confidence through a market structure more closely aligned with the country’s current monetary reality.
It also demonstrates the importance of regulatory adaptability.
Markets evolve. When the economic environment changes, financial infrastructure has to change with it.
A new role for pension and insurance capital
Perhaps the greatest long-term opportunity is the mobilisation of Zimbabwe’s institutional savings.
Pension funds and insurers hold capital with long investment horizons. If that capital is trapped in illiquid instruments or exposed excessively to inflation and currency risk, its ability to finance economic development is weakened.
A deeper VFEX could provide an alternative. Pension funds could invest in listed equities. Insurers could participate in infrastructure securities.
Asset managers could construct diversified US-dollar portfolios. Retail investors could gain access to larger companies. Foreign investors could obtain exposure to Zimbabwe through a familiar dollar-settled market infrastructure.
The result would be a more interconnected financial system in which savings can move towards productive investment.
From stock exchange to capital-market ecosystem
That is ultimately the significance of Old Mutual’s return.
The objective should not be to measure VFEX’s success simply by counting listed companies.
The real measure should be whether the exchange becomes an efficient mechanism for transforming savings into investment.
A mature capital market should allow a company to raise long-term capital, investors to diversify portfolios, pension funds to match liabilities with assets, infrastructure projects to attract institutional financing and foreign investors to participate without facing unnecessary currency barriers.
Old Mutual’s migration moves VFEX closer to that objective.
It brings one of Zimbabwe’s most recognisable financial institutions back into active local trading and gives investors another major US-dollar asset through which to participate in the country’s economy.
A vote of confidence, but also a test
For Zimbabwe, however, the listing is both a vote of confidence and a test.
The country now needs to demonstrate that its financial-market reforms can provide the predictability investors require.
That means protecting property rights, maintaining transparent trading rules, strengthening corporate governance, ensuring efficient settlement and avoiding policy interventions that undermine investor confidence.
Capital markets are built slowly but can lose credibility very quickly.
The return of Old Mutual should therefore be viewed as an opportunity to institutionalise a new era of market development.
The government has articulated an ambition to make Victoria Falls a regional financial centre. VFEX is one of the principal mechanisms through which that ambition can become tangible.
Old Mutual’s decision to return is significant precisely because the company has spent years observing the evolution of the exchange before concluding that it now has sufficient scale and liquidity to support its listing.
The bigger economic prize
The ultimate prize is not Old Mutual’s listing itself.
It is the creation of a deeper financial system capable of financing Zimbabwe’s next phase of economic growth.
Zimbabwe requires billions of dollars of investment in electricity, transport, water, housing, agriculture, mining and manufacturing. Commercial banks alone cannot efficiently finance all of those requirements.
The country needs pension capital, insurance capital, private-equity capital, infrastructure funds, foreign portfolio investment and domestic household savings.
Those pools of capital require functioning markets.
The return of Old Mutual to active trading on VFEX is therefore more than a corporate event. It is a small but important piece of a much larger effort to rebuild Zimbabwe’s financial architecture.
If VFEX can continue attracting credible issuers, increase liquidity and connect domestic savings with long-term investment opportunities, Victoria Falls could gradually develop from a stock-exchange location into a genuine regional capital-market centre.
For Zimbabwe, that would represent something much more valuable than another listing.
It would mean that the country is beginning to rebuild the financial machinery required to turn savings into capital, capital into investment and investment into economic growth.
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