Old Mutual will move its Zimbabwe secondary listing from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) to the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX), ending a six-year trading suspension.
The insurer’s shares have not traded on the ZSE since 2020. That year, government suspended trading on the exchange, saying some stocks were being used to fuel currency instability.
Authorities argued that Old Mutual’s dual listing in Zimbabwe and Johannesburg was behind the Old Mutual Implied Rate (OMIR), at the time a widely used alternative market rate to the official exchange rate. This was despite Old Mutual itself having no influence on OMIR.
In its latest statement, Old Mutual says it has spent the past six years engaging government, regulators and the exchanges to find a solution that would allow Zimbabwean shareholders to trade their shares again.
The company says the VFEX has now “come into its own” and developed “sufficient scale and liquidity as a viable alternative trading platform to the ZSE”, leading the board to back the move.
Average turnover per listed company on the VFEX has risen from US$300,000 in 2021 to US$7 million in 2025.
Old Mutual says the migration, which awaits regulatory approval, will restore trading for Zimbabwean shareholders, “enabling them to either trade their shares or to continue holding them and receive dividends”, while giving them access to a US dollar-denominated exchange with lower currency risk, tax incentives and growing liquidity.
The ZSE says: “The announcement of the migration by OML shows confidence in our economy, the capital markets, and particularly in VFEX. We are grateful to OML for being forward looking through its decision to migrate tthe VFEX. The ZSE Holdings will continue working closely with OML to ensure a smooth migration process and outline a detailed transition process for shareholders on how they will trade their OML securities on VFEX.”
