Stanchart has formally disclosed that they will be disposing off their head office in town along moi avenue. i.e. StanBank house. Which is now housing Mr Price on the ground floor.
This is a material transaction as when the deal is closed could be worth a few hundred million shillings.
Here is the release.
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Safaricom share price on a steady rise in the past few days.
Bloomberg reports that Morgan Stanley has revised its price estimate and raised it to 6.40 shillings from 4.80 shillings.
Their overweight position on Safaricom is bouyed by improved earnings, more penetration of M-Pesa and new broadband revenue streams.
Morgan Stanley estimates 22 percent group revenue growth in 2010 and a further 16 percent in 2011 compared with 12 percent and 10 percent previously. It also sees “room for positive surprise” on dividends.
In the past few days active trading on Safaricom’s shares has persisted and the price has steadily improved. Foreign demand on the counter continued to build accounting for over 99% of total value traded yesterday.
More on the Standard and Business Daily.
Previous periods performance of Safaricom here.
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Here is an older post with more details and below is the NIC IPO Prospectus.
NIC is currently owned 60% by IGI through Corporate Holdings Limited (CHL), and 40% by the GoU. After the Offer for sale, the shareholding is expected to be 60% held by IGI and 40% held by the general public and institutional investors, both local and foreign.
The Offer for Sale of 40% or about 161,552,000 ordinary shares of NIC of UGX 5 each at UGX 45 per share.
Opening of the Offer 12:00 Noon 31 December 2009 and closes at 05:00pm on 05 February 2010
Announcement of Basis of Allotment Criteria will be on 09 March 2010
Dispatch of Share Certificates and refund cheques to the Authorized Selling Agents is on 18 March 2010
Commencement of trading of NIC shares on the USE 25 March 2010
The offer gives NIC a Market Capitalisation of UGX 7,269,840,000 at the offer price.
More details in the NIC IPO Prospectus.
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Kenya Power & Lighting Company (KPLC) plans to restructure its share capital in Q1 of 2010 in an effort to strengthen its balance sheet and also enhance the affordability of its shares in the market.
This will include:
- Conversion of 87% of the 7.85% redeemable non-cumulative preference shares owned by the Govt into ordinary shares.
- Floatation of a rights issue where the govt will renounce some of its rights and trade them on the NSE.
- Carry out an unspecified share split so that the KPLC shares can trade at a smaller denomination.
Here is the complete press release from KPLC.
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Key highlights of the period ended 30th Sept 2009.
- The active subscribers increased from 11.96M to 14.51M by 21.4% and around 77.5% market share.
- M-PESA now has 7.99M registered users almost doubling from 4.14M last year.
- Revenues hit Kes:40.7Bn from Kes:34.5Bn last year
- Data services which include SMS and M-PESA almost doubled to Kes:7.20Bn
- Profit After Tax hit Kes:6.63Bn from Kes:6.22Bn last year.
- Capital expenditure was down however to Kes:8.53Bn from Kes:10.04Bn last year.
- Bringing total capital investment since inception of Safcom to Kes:128.3Bn.
Concerns:
Increased competition from the other three mobile players and more data players, a challenging regulatory regime, persistently high inflation (reducing disposable income and increasing operating expenses), increasing power/energy costs, declining voice ARPUs and higher costs of funding as key challenges.
Opportunities:
Expect significant growth from data services and plans to continue spending aggressively on its network in order to maintain its market position and offer new voice and data (incl. MPESA) products.
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After the lapsed bid for Carbacid, both Carbacid and BOC Gases resume trading on NSE on Wednesday with much anticipation from shareholders.
BOC’s shares were last traded on 2nd Dec 2005 at a price of Kes:160 and those of Carbacid at 137 .
Below for more details and here are the financial results from BOC gases.
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According to these stats, Internet penetration is at 6.7% with Africa accounting for only 3.9% of the world’s internet users. Whats more Kenya scores fewer internet users than Sudan. Though we cannot ignore the fact that Sudan’s population is higher than Kenya’s and that their economy is also larger.
But hopefully these numbers will shoot higher if the promised reduction in internet access prices materialize eventually.
Anyway this means if am looking at starting an online business in Kenya my potential market is currently at only 3.4M and thats assuming full market penetration for ‘my business’. Now to put this into perspective, the same report claims that China has over 338M users and India has 81M.
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The South African Reserve Bank left the Repo Rate unchanged at 7%, while the Kenyan Central Bank also decided to leave the CBR unchanged at 7.75%.
The difference here only being that South African banks actually benchmark the lending rate based on the Prime Rate which is 10.5% (Repo rate of 7% + 3.5%). While Kenya’s CBR is almost ceremonial and mostly just an indication of what the Central Bank would like banks to do as opposed to a market based benchmark.
The decision by CBK to leave rates unchanged was based on the impact of drought on Kenya’s economic performance and the slow growth in private sector credit.
Here is Prof Ndungu’s press release after the monetary policy meeting yesterday.
Updated on 29th Sept: Download the final press release from the CBK here, which has a detailed outlook of the Kenyan economy from the eyes of the Central bank economists.
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Kenyan tea prices have hit record highs at the past few week’s auctions in Mombasa on drought fears ahead of Ramadan, when trading in Islamic countries falls sharply and consumption rises but improved quality and overall tight world supply also contributed.
This demand is being driven by Middle East countries. And what’s more most of the tea offered for auction is actually being sold off at these high prices.
The average price for Best BP1s hit $4.03 per kg, up from a previous high of $3.97 reached in August. Tea offered at the weekly auction in Mombasa has fetched higher prices this year with buyers stocking up as drought in the world’s biggest exporter of black tea hit production. These prices are almost reaching the records of 1996 and 1997.
This might as well be reflected in the next financial reporting period of the listed tea companies. Which include Williamson Tea, Sasini Tea & Coffee, Kapchorua Tea and Limuru Tea among others.
Reason for the short-term optimism:
- The Shilling is still weak against the US dollar at about Kes 75-78 to the $.
- Tea prices at their highest in almost 10 years
- Increased Govt. investment in the tea industry.
More on this from Nation Media and Bloomberg.
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Engen, South Africa’s leading refined petroleum products company, and KenolKobil , the largest indigenous African petroleum marketing company in the East and Central African Region, have signed a sale and purchase agreement to jointly acquire all the shares in Shell Zimbabwe and BP Zimbabwe.
The acquired entities were previously operated by BP on behalf of the joint venture which marketed under both the BP and Shell brands in Zimbabwe.
With this transaction, Engen and KenolKobil have acquired the best developed assets in the oil industry in Zimbabwe, consisting of more than 75 service stations spread across the country, as well as several depots, located in Harare, Bulawayo,Mutare, Gweru and other major towns in Zimbabwe.
This seems a good move especially if the coalition govt. in Zimbabwe can hold it together and emerge as a better run country which would only mean an upside for KenolKobil and with this move now KenolKobil has a footprint in East, Central and Southern Africa Regions.
The acquisition is in line with KenolKobil’s expansionary plans, as evidenced by the recent entry into Burundi where they acquired from Engen in Burundi; Oil Burundi Limited.
KenolKobil was suspended from the NSE today as this transaction takes place.
Post based on KenolKobil press release to be found here from KenolKobil and here the softcopy for download.
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