Ethiopia’s 50-Year Sequel to its Stock Exchange
Ethiopia's recent launch of its capital market has been seen as its first. However, Ethiopia actually made significant strides in establishing a capital market in its early history, the current capital market being a sequel to the early efforts.
On January 10th, 2025, Ethiopia made the historic move of relaunching its capital market. This is Ethiopia’s first capital market in the past five decades. At least 50 companies are expected to list their securities on the exchange. The exchange is a public-private partnership with 75% allocated to private investors. It started with Wegagen Bank as the first listed company, with founding members like Ethio Telecom and Ethiopian Insurance Corporation expected to make an IPO soon.
As mentioned above, Ethiopia had a capital market before it was closed by the Derg regime when it took over the country in 1974. To understand the current capital market and what potential benefits it would bring to Ethiopia, its history is a good place to start.