Old Mutual Limited’s (OML) return to Zimbabwe’s capital markets has triggered a major overhaul in how the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX) calculates its market capitalisation, pushing the bourse’s reported value up nearly 86% to US$7.74 billion.
The VFEX’s market capitalisation rose from US$4.17 billion to US$7.74 billion after the exchange introduced a new methodology for calculating the value of cross-listed companies, with the change taking effect on August 13.
Under the new approach, the VFEX will no longer value cross-listed companies based solely on the shares represented on Zimbabwe’s share register.
Instead, it will recognise the issuer’s total issued shares across all markets when determining global market capitalisation.
“With effect from 13 August 2026, VFEX will recognise the global market capitalisation of issuers listed on VFEX whose securities are also listed on another recognised stock exchange,” the VFEX said.
“For purposes of this notice, global market capitalisation shall be determined by multiplying the prevailing market price of the issuer’s securities on VFEX by the issuer’s total number of issued shares.”
The VFEX said the methodology was intended to reflect the overall equity value of the issuer, irrespective of the distribution of its listed securities across recognised exchanges.
“The adoption of this approach is intended to align VFEX’s treatment of cross-listed issuers with market-capitalisation conventions commonly applied to cross-listed securities in other jurisdictions and to promote comparability, transparency and consistency in the assessment of issuer size and market standing,” the VFEX said.
The exchange added that it may request additional information or use another methodology where necessary to ensure an accurate market-capitalisation calculation.
OML’s shares are listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), its primary listing, as well as the London Stock Exchange (LSE), Malawi Stock Exchange, and Namibia Securities Exchange, apart from the VFEX. Consequently, valuing OML based only on the 65.19 million shares represented in Zimbabwe as at 5 June 2026, would significantly understate the size of the South African financial services group.
On OML’s first full day of trading last Wednesday, the counter closed at US$0.7817 per share, for a market capitalisation of US$50.96 million.
By Thursday, this market value had grown to US$52.33 million.
However, under the new methodology, using OML’s total issued share capital of 4.498 billion shares as of June 5, 2026, and the company’s VFEX price of US$0.8028 as of last Thursday, it now has a valuation of over US$3 billion.
A look at OML’s JSE performance confirms this, as it had a market capitalisation of ZAR59.19 billion, which converts to US$3.66 billion.
Thus, adding OML’s new valuation together with other restated values of firms with cross-listings—such as Caledonia Mining Corporation, Seed Co International, Invictus Energy, and Kavango Resources—gives the VFEX its US$7.74 billion value.
“The VFEX now wants the business valuations to be easier, I can put it in that way, or comparable.
“So previously, secondary listed companies, for example, Caledonia Mining Corporation or Kavango Resources, just used to list shares only on the VFEX and the market price per share,” stock analyst Tarisai Makuni told Standardbusiness.
“That’s how they used to calculate market capitalisation. But now, those companies might have, for example, 100,000 units in issue, but only 50,000 are listed on the VFEX and the others on the LSE.”
She said this made it difficult to determine a cross-listed company’s market value, as the VFEX only considered its locally issued shares and share price.
“But now, they just want to use the total units that are in issue for that company, be it on the LSE, JSE, or whichever exchange, together, so that they just see the market cap. And I think you can just check on the Old Mutual example,” Makuni said.
“On the 12th of August, Old Mutual market cap was around, I think, US$50.96 million. But now, as from today (Friday), you will just see that it’s now about US$3 billion.
“Because what they did, they just took the total number of issues of Old Mutual Limited, both listed on JSE and VFEX, and multiplied with the current market price per share.”
In its new July 2026 Economic Snapshot, FBC Holdings Limited (FBC) noted that the VFEX continued to strengthen its position as Zimbabwe’s principal United States dollar-denominated capital market.
“A significant development for the capital market is the migration of Old Mutual Limited’s secondary listing from the ZSE to the VFEX…
“The return of this blue-chip counter follows a six-year suspension imposed in 2020 over concerns regarding the use of fungible shares to derive an implied exchange rate,” FBC said.
“Prior to its suspension, Old Mutual was one of the ZSE’s largest and most liquid counters, forming part of the All Share, Top 10 and Financial Indices,” FBC added.
“The migration is expected to materially enhance the depth and attractiveness of the VFEX by increasing market capitalisation, improving liquidity and price discovery, broadening investment opportunities and strengthening the exchange’s appeal to both domestic and international investors.”
FBC said this listing will also serve as an important milestone in assessing the VFEX’s capacity to accommodate large, highly liquid securities.