ZCCM Investment Holdings is under pressure from minority shareholders to boost transparency in the manage- ment of Zambia’s State-controlled mining investment company and list on a regulated stock market.

Private investors, who hold 12.4% of Lusaka-based ZCCM Investment Holdings, are trying to install a representative on the board to improve corporate governance, says Philippe Taussac, a France-based private investor.

Some minority shareholders want ZCCM Investment Holdings to trade on London’s Aim to boost liquidity, increase the share price and force the company to meet specific disclosure procedures, Taussac says.

The government of Zambia, Africa’s biggest copper producer, owns the rest of the company, which has stakes in the local units of Glencore Xstrata and Vedanta Resources. Prior to privatisation of the industry in the 1990s, ZCCM owned and operated most of the copper mines in the country.

“We must, as quickly as possible, leave this unregulated market,” Taussac says. “A few of us think Aim could be the best place at first.” London is “also the place where the biggest mining companies are quoted and listed”.

ZCCM Investment Holdings owns 20.6% of Konkola Copper Mines, a unit of Vedanta, and 20% of Kansanshi Mining with the balance owned by First Quantum. The company also has a 10% shareholding in Xstrata’s Mopani Copper Mines and Eurasia Natural Resources Company’s Chambishi Metals.

It was formed to hold government’s minority interests in Zambia’s copper mines after the State privatised the industry between 1996 and 2001.

The company’s total assets increased to 3.1-trillion kwacha ($590-million) by the end of September from 2.7-trillion kwacha a year earlier, according to ZCCM Investment Holdings’ half-year financial statement. It has a market value of $47.9-million, according to the website of NYSE Euronext.

“The company is highly undervalued,” and its “real value” is about $3.5-billion, Taussac says. “That’s why the people are there. They’re expecting to earn money.”

Minority investors backed Taussac to represent them on the board after ZCCM Investment Holdings last year issued a statement asking shareholders for nominations.

The Zambia government agreed to convert all or some of about 2.1-billion kwacha that the company owes it into equity through a rights offer, the company said in December. The appointment of a minority representative will only take place once the deal has been concluded.

The sequence of events should be the “exact opposite”, with the representative appointed before the debt-to-equity swap to protect the interests of investors, Taussac says.

“The issue of minority shareholder representation is still under consideration,” says CFO Mabvuto Chipata. The company is also “reviewing its listings to determine the appropriate listings to maintain”.

ZCCM Investment Holdings intends to carry out the sale of stock to existing investors by the end of June, following an asset valuation, CEO Mukela Muyunda said on January 31.

Minority owners of the company want to see that the valuation is properly done before they agree to take part in the rights offer.

“The general thinking of the minority shareholders is that they do not want to spend a penny more in the company without visibility and clear engagement from the company,” Taussac says.

About 85% of ZCCM Investment Holdings’ minority investors are based in France, Belgium and England, according to Taussac, who says he has been a shareholder since 2005 and holds 250 000 shares with his family.

Zambia produced 668 000 t of copper in 2011, according to the US Geological Survey.