Botswana’s largest retailer Choppies plans to cross-list its shares at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange by the end of May, as it expand its business in sub-Saharan Africa, BDlive quoted its chief executive saying on Tuesday.

The multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer Choppies, which has stores in three Southern Africa countries and  looking to expand into Zambia and Tanzania this year, will list 10 percent of its shares to raise about $50 million.

Choppies, which commands a market capitalization of about $535 million on the Botswana Stock Exchange, plans to open 31 new stores in its main markets Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe by the end of 2015. It already has 125 retail outlets in these countries.

“We have the infrastructure to take our store base in South Africa to 100 without having to increase the distribution capacity,” Choppies CEO Ramachandran Ottappath said.

According to its annual report, the 15-year old company has a 32 percent share of Botswana’s retail market and plans to add five more stores, taking the total to 77 retail outlets, by December, followed by another 20 in the medium term.

“We’ll double this business; we’ll grow significantly without compromising profitability” Ottappath said.