ZIMRE Holdings (Zimre) says its strategy and focus is consolidating its growth position in the southern African region and strengthening capital before it pursues more investments further up to eastern and western Africa.
The diversified group is growing its business interests in Angola and has been registered to trade in Tanzania and Kenya. It also has interests in Swaziland.
Zimre has anchored its strategy on harnessing the various strengths of its new structure and strategic partnerships to drive the capacitation of its regional units and to expand its footprint further into the African continent.
Zimre group chief executive officer, Stanley Kudenga
“We are currently in Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana and Zambia, but from Mozambique, we are also making a springboard into Angola because they are all Portuguese-speaking nations,” Zimre’s group chief executive, Stanley Kudenga, said on the sidelines of the group annual general meeting in the capital recently.
“So we are significantly growing our business interest in Angola. So far we are servicing it from Maputo and depending on the immediate growth, it could be one of the few areas that we could look at opening a presence going forward, but we also have interests in Swaziland, and we are now also registered to trade in Tanzania and Kenya.
“Our strategy and focus are to consolidate our growth position in the southern African region and strengthen the capital before we do further investments outside the region, further up to eastern and western Africa.”
In 2022, Zimre’s regional operations contributed 43 percent to gross premium written compared to 41 percent in 2021 and thus remain key strategic investments that provide diversification value to the group. Kudenga said Zimre is currently considering migrating to the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX) to serve its reinsurance business.
He said the group’s reinsurance business has now become regional, adding that “our intention is also to strengthen the regional underwriting capacity and capital, so it would make sense if we were to list or raise capital for the regional operations on the VFEX, so it’s something that we are currently looking into, but obviously the board and shareholders will also need to guide us in terms of whether we do it at the group level, which is Zimre, or we do it predominantly in the reinsurance industry, which already has a regional presence,” he added.