Ugandan bourse may exclude Tullow Oil from index

Uganda's budding bourse may exclude Britain's Tullow Oil TLW.L from its all-share index because the firm's shares could distort views of the market's performance, a top bourse official said.

With significant finds in the east African nation, the independent oil explorer plans to cross-list on the Ugandan stock exchange around next month.

Simon Rutega, chief executive of the Uganda Securities Exchange (USE) said that due to its huge size, Tullow was bound to eclipse all the local stocks and swing the bourse's All Share Index by huge margins.

"Because of the company's size we think activity on their counter might misrepresent the true picture of how the bourse is performing and so we're considering excluding it from our index," he said late on Monday.

USE has 11 companies, including five that are cross-listed from the Nairobi Stock Exchange. The bourse's performance has been steadily improving, though, after a long slump triggered by the global economic crisis.

Foreign investor interest in Uganda's fast-expanding petroleum industry has been growing as more discoveries are made and the economy's growth prospects become brighter on the back of an imminent flow of petrodollars.