THE Securities Commission of Zimbabwe (SECZ) has registered three transfer secretaries amid indications that most in-house scrip registrars have refused to meet regulatory requirements.
Report by Bernard Mpofu
This comes at a time when the commission has de-registered and ordered Regatta Transfer Secretaries to transfer its register to registered entities. The firm which manages the share register for CFI, Turnall, NicozDiamond and General Beltings did not meet the minimum capital requirements.
According to a notice issued by the capital markets regulator yesterday, in-house transfer secretaries for companies listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange did not meet the December 31 deadline to register with the commission.SECZ licensed the largest transfer secretaries – First Transfer Secretaries, Corpserve and ZB Transfer Secretaries – after the firms met the $150 000 net asset threshold.
This means that the companies’ total assets, excluding their liabilities, exceeded the threshold.
It is understood that unregistered in-house transfer secretaries — Innscor Transfer Secretaries, Radar Investments and Apex Management — have in recent years approached the commission arguing that there was no provision in the Securities Commission Act to licence them.
They reportedly argued that they were representing their respective holding companies and were essentially acting as their corporate secretaries, a position the commission opposes.
ZB Transfer Secretaries is a unit of financial services group ZB Financial Holdings. The share registry firm also manages registers of other listed institutions like Kingdom Financial Holdings, CBZ Holdings, Ariston Holdings, Mashonaland Holdings, Interfresh, Meikles, Falcon Gold, Zimre Holdings and Fidelity Life Assurance.
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Last year SECZ announced it had registered three transfer secretaries to provide share registry services to over 70 companies on the local bourse, leaving four of them unlicensed.
SECZ, in a public notice, said investors should not deal with unregistered firms, but investigations by this newspaper indicated that the companies were still conducting business as usual.
Last year Radar Holdings Limited said the industrial concern had engaged the capital markets regulator over the issue, but maintained that Radar Investments, a unit of Radar Holdings, was offering share registry services to Border and Radar and that it was not “in the share transfer business”.
“Radar Investments (Pvt) Limited is the formal registered secretary of Radar Holdings Limited,” Radar managing director Elias Hwenga said.
“As such it is not in the share transfer business, but discharges its statutory obligation as company secretary to register share transfers between shareholders. “It discharges its statutory obligation for free (with) all the costs being borne by Radar Holdings Limited. We regret we cannot disclose our discussions with the SECZ to the Press.”
