OLD Mutual's return to Zimbabwe's capital markets is more than the migration of a blue-chip stock from one exchange to another.
It marks the end of one of the most damaging episodes in the country's capital market history — and offers an opportunity to rebuild badly shaken investor confidence.
For six years, Zimbabwean investors who held Old Mutual shares were effectively locked out of one of the market's most valuable counters. While the company continued trading on the Johannesburg, London and Malawi stock exchanges, local shareholders could only watch from the sidelines as the value of their investment was determined elsewhere.
That chapter is finally drawing to a close.
Old Mutual's migration from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) to the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX) restores something fundamental to investors: the ability to trade their shares. That alone deserves recognition.
But the migration should not be mistaken for the end of the story.
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The bigger question is what this six-year saga says about Zimbabwe's investment climate — and whether policymakers have learned the lessons it exposed.
In June 2020, the government suspended trading in three dual-listed counters — Old Mutual, PPC Limited and Seed Co International — arguing that their shares were being used to externalise capital and distort the exchange rate through what became known as the Old Mutual Implied Rate.
Did the suspension of trading in Old Mutual shares halted the routing of the local currency? The answer is a big no. In fact, the routing continued until the Zimbabwe dollar was replaced by the gold-backed Zimbabwe Gold currency in April 2024.
Authorities directed the companies to delist from the ZSE and migrate to the newly established VFEX. Seed Co International complied, delisted from the ZSE and resumed trading on the VFEX with fungibility restored. Old Mutual, however, remained suspended while negotiations over its future continued.
For investors, the reasons behind the suspension mattered less than its consequences.
Capital markets operate on a fundamental promise: investors must be free to enter and exit investments. When that freedom disappears, confidence disappears with it.
The suspension imposed a heavy cost. Pension funds saw billions tied up in an illiquid asset. Asset managers lost flexibility. Individual investors were denied the ability to realise value from their holdings or rebalance their portfolios. For six years, retirement savings invested in one of Zimbabwe's strongest financial institutions were effectively frozen.
The damage extended well beyond those directly affected.
International investors saw yet another reminder that regulatory intervention in Zimbabwe can abruptly change the rules of the market. That perception lingers long after any dispute has been resolved because capital naturally flows towards certainty.
Confidence, once lost, is slow to rebuild.
Old Mutual's arrival on the VFEX also presents the exchange with its most significant test since its establishment.
Unlike a conventional listing, there is no recent Zimbabwe market price to guide trading. Investors themselves will determine the company's opening valuation through supply and demand. That process of price discovery lies at the heart of every efficient market.
If trading is transparent, orderly and sufficiently liquid, it will strengthen the VFEX's credibility as Zimbabwe's premier United States dollar-denominated exchange.
Old Mutual's return therefore becomes a referendum on the maturity of the VFEX itself.
There is an equally important lesson for policymakers.
Zimbabwe cannot aspire to become a regional financial centre while allowing prolonged trading suspensions to become an accepted regulatory practice. Investors understand commercial risk. They can price political risk. What they struggle to accommodate is regulatory unpredictability.
Markets depend on certainty, consistency and confidence.
All confidence is not lost, however. ZSE Holdings chief executive Justin Bgoni said the migration of Old Mutual to VFEX reflects confidence in Zimbabwe's economy and capital markets.
Investors will now expect predictable regulation, respect for property rights, policy consistency and assurance that no listed company will again spend six years trapped in regulatory limbo.
That is not an unreasonable expectation. It is the minimum requirement for rebuilding trust in Zimbabwe's capital markets.