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Zimbabwean multimillionaire businessman Zinona Koudounaris has seen the market value of his stake in Harare-based company Axia Corporation (Axia Corp) increase by hundreds of millions of dollars, resulting in a significant increase in his net worth.
Axia Corp operates in the specialty retail and distribution sector, with dominant businesses in the retail of household goods and appliances, automotive goods retail, and fast-moving consumer goods distribution across Zimbabwe.
Koudounaris, a Zimbabwean multimillionaire serial investor who serves on Axia Corp’s board of directors, owns a 20.86-percent stake in the Zimbabwe-based company, totaling 113,982,912 ordinary shares.
Data retrieved by Billionaires.Africa revealed that the market value of his stake has increased by more than $245 million since the start of the year, thanks to a triple-digit percent surge in the company’s shares as investors accumulate shares in the Harare-based firm in response to the robust growth in its earnings in the first half of its 2022 fiscal year.
Despite the impact of European unrest on the valuation of companies and financial assets around the world, shares in Axia Corp have increased by over 500 percent since the year began, making it the best performing mid-cap stock in Africa.
The stock price of Axia Corp has risen from ZWL30.05 ($0.0933) at the start of the year to ZWL184.466 ($0.5729). At the time of writing, this amounted to a total gain of 513.86 percent for the company’s shareholders since the beginning of the year.
As a result, Koudounaris’ stake grew from ZWL15.51 billion ($48.18 million) on Jan. 1 to ZWL95.24 billion ($295.78 million) on April 26.
This equates to a total gain of ZWL79.72 billion ($247.59 million) for the Zimbabwean businessman. The multimillion-dollar spike cements his position as one of the biggest investors on the local bourse, as well as one of the richest businessmen in the country.
The increase in the company’s market capitalization, as well as the market value of Koudounaris’ stake, can be directly attributed to investors’ continued buying interest in shares following Axia Corp’s announcement that its earnings more than doubled in the first six months of its fiscal year 2022.
According to data from the company’s half-year report, net income increased from ZWL484.18 million ($1.5 million) in 2021 to ZWL984.29 million ($3.05 million), owing to an increase in total sales for the period from ZWL14.85 billion ($46 million) to ZWL16.88 billion ($52 million).
