Zimbabwean billionaire tech tycoon Strive Masiyiwa has seen his stake in Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Ltd. increase by 183.05 percent since the start of the year amid sustained buying pressure on the shares of his telecom company.
The recent increase in the Econet share price has led to gains of about $61.13 million for the tech billionaire, who holds the majority of the company’s shares.
Masiyiwa founded Econet, Zimbabwe’s first telecom service provider, in 1993. He is worth about $1.2 billion.
Masiyiwa has seen Econet grow to become the largest enterprise of its kind in Zimbabwe and the largest company on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange by market capitalization.
He holds about 1.132 billion units of the company’s total issued ordinary shares, giving him a controlling interest in the company. His stake in Econet accounts for about 50 percent of the total issued shares.
Amid the recent surge in the Econet share price from $0.029 (ZWL 9.50) per share at the start of the year to $0.083 (ZWL 26.89) per share at the close of trading today, the market value of the billionaire’s stake has risen by $61.13 million. Meanwhile, the gains in the company’s share price have seen Masiyiwa’s stake rise in value from $33.4 million in early 2021 to $94.5 million at the end of the day today.
Masiyiwa has had an eventful past two years. He played an important role in steering Africa’s 54 nations into an alliance that materialized into consolidated efforts to weather the COVID-19 crisis. Africa recorded much greater success in combating the virus than many far wealthier countries. The Zimbabwean billionaire was named as a result to the 2021 list of the 50 World’s Greatest Leaders by Fortune. He currently sits on the board of Netflix and recently secured a $100-million investment for a data center in Nigeria.
