The launch ceremony was held on Friday morning, and this came after several lively debates on TV news shows last night on the issue of if the IPO should go on
A bit of politics: ODM and civil society were a bit late to the party (they have known for two weeks that this was coming), with final complaints about Mobiltelea. And ODM MP’s (Anyang Nyongo and Omingo Magara) went ahead to put a caveat notice in the newspaper today warning investors that the Safaricom privatization is being done outside of existing privatization law, the privatization commission supposed to oversee the process has been sidelined and that there are conflicts of interest among transaction advisers.
That out of the way, it is clear that Minister Amos Kimunya and the rest of Government doesn’t want to hear about Mobitelea or have anything derail the IPO which will net about 50 billion shillings ($770 million) to the Government for rebuilding.
Why start early?: That out of the way, day one is rather quiet, with not too many queues outside some stockbroker offices. But there’s almost a month to go, and Kenyans are not very time conscious initially. This will change next week, as investors will have been bombarded with questions of the process, are looking for cash or are wading though loan sharek offers from various banks and SACCO’s before placing their orders. I hope ether won’t be calls to extend the process for late-comers late in April!
Official sites: Safaricom also launched a revamped website to coincide with the IPO. There are also two official sites, for online applications and information – but the prospectus is yet to be put up on either.
Shooting blanks: All week long the Business Daily has been promising a feature edition that would help investors identify the good from the bad brokers. But when your own CEO is a director of a stockbrokerage, that’s about as serious as a member of Karen club complaining about the green on the 18th hole at Muthaiga club course. The 20 page issue issue aimed at sophisticated investors does not name names or go beyond tips and guidance on ethical stockbrokers, how to select a broker, qualities to look for in a broker (office premises, reporting frequency, staff qualifications, ownership – How??) for 20 pages full of advertisements by the same brokers. So you’ll have to be satisfied blogs, forums or other online channels to find out the good and the bad of brokers.
East African investors: CFC announced this week that they have they have crossed the 100,000 CDS (online investors) account mark. But a Uganda stockbroker does not get expect to get more than 2,000 applications owing o the passport requirements
– Meanwhile you can design a logo for EASEA – the East African Stock Exchanges Association.
Other opportunities from the papers
Jobs
– Barclays: relationship manager – SME banking, local business development manager, local business advisor. human.resources@barclays.com
– Deloitte: (2) business Analysts’ corporate financial services: hr@deloitte.co.ke by 5/5
– Insurance regulator authority; manager technical, finance manager, company secretary (legal manager), commins@skyweb.co.ke by 15/4