The cost of equity of dual-listed South African companies

M.Comm. (Financial Management)Since the late 1990s South African companies have started to dual list their shares in different countries, mainly to source capital from larger and more developed economies. In addition to this the level of participation by foreigners in the buying and selling of South African shares has increased. This leads to the question: should a local or a global CAPM (capital asset pricing model) be used to value shares that are traded in integrated global capital markets? This study focuses on dual-listed South African shares as these shares are most likely to be traded by investors globally. This study replicated aspects of earlier studies conducted in the Unites States of America and the United Kingdom, which are developed economies. By applying the same principles within a South African context, valuable insights might be derived relating to companies from developing economies. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of using a global CAPM instead of a local CAPM to determine the cost of equity of South African companies. To this end, a sample of 26 dual-listed South African companies was selected using non-probability judgement sampling. Descriptive research was undertaken using quantitative analysis of secondary data. The cost of equity using the local and global CAPM was calculated for each of the selected dual-listed South African companies. The historical monthly returns of the dual-listed shares as well as each of the local and global risk factors during the period from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2009 were used to calculate the local and global beta coefficients. The estimates of the local and global cost of equity were compared to ascertain whether there were significant differences for individual shares, as well as across different market sectors. While the results from similar previous studies on shares of developed countries by Koedijk and van Dijk (2004:474); Koedijk et al (2002:911); and Mishra and O‟Brien (2001:28) indicated insignificant differences between the local and global CAPM, this study indicated differences of 400 basis points and above for the sample of dual-listed South African companies. The findings in this study therefore suggest that the findings from studies conducted in developed economies cannot be generalised for companies in developing economies. In the South African market, shares across different sectors behave differently towards global risk factors; therefore this study highlighted the need for financial analysts to carefully consider using the global CAPM instead of the local CAPM when valuing shares that are traded in globally integrated capital markets. Using the incorrect cost of equity may result in incorrectly valuing a company as well as incorrect decision making