Kenya’s Centum, the biggest publicly traded company in East Africa, has said that it plans to cross list its shares on the Rwanda Stock Exchange (RSE), next year, after it started secondary trading on the Uganda Securities Exchange (USE) on Thursday.

Subject to Capital Markets Advisory (CMAC) approval, the cross listing will make Centum the third Kenyan company to have its shares traded on the Rwanda bourse after Kenya Commercial Bank  and Nation Media Group (NMG).

"By investing in one share of Centum, you don’t have to invest in many sectors because Centum invests in a diversified area of ventures,” the company’s Chief Executive Officer, James Mworia told reporters in Kampala, Uganda.

With its main listing on the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE), the company also plans to cross list its shares on the Dar-es-Salaam Stock Exchanges.

Centum sold 4 million shares, and the stock rose as much as 2.3 percent to 670 Ugandan shillings ($0.29), its Chairman James Muguiyi said. 

The company plans to increase its assets under management threefold to 30 billion Kenyan shillings by 2014, with at least half of the portfolio expected to be outside Kenya, Muguiyi said.

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