Zim To Have First Listed Agric Commodity Fund

The SCF will provide a price discovery mechanism on the Zimbabwe Mercantile Exchange, allowing farmers to get fair pricing for their produce, including maize (File Picture

Michael Tome-Business Reporter

STRATUS Capital Partners will list its commodity fund on the Financial Securities Exchange (Finsec) on August 11, 2023, becoming Zimbabwe’s first agriculture-based commodity fund. The Stratus Commodity Fund (SCF) to be listed on Finsec is a collective investment scheme licensed by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe (SecZim) on March 8, 2023. The fund was created to fund post-harvest agriculture activities in Zimbabwe, including the provision of liquidity on the Zimbabwe Mercantile Exchange (ZMX). According to SCF, the listing will enable the seamless trading of agricultural produce through the aggregation of small parcels of produce from various farmers across the country. The agricultural produce will be aggregated into bigger parcels for agro-processors and other users of agricultural produce as manufacturing inputs. Status Capital Partners’ SCF will provide a price discovery mechanism on the agricultural exchange, ZMX, allowing farmers to get fair pricing for their produce and processors to get closer to import parity prices. It seeks to raise US$50 million. The funds will be raised through the issuance of 50 million units of the fund at US$1 each. Stratus Capital Partners Commodity Fund will initially invest 70 percent of its investable assets in physical agricultural commodities while 20 percent in quasi-debt instruments and 10 percent into the money market for the purposes of liquidity. ReadMore