Category Archives: NSE portfolio

Nairobi investment tips from Genghis for 2020

Genghis Capital has launched its 2020 investment playbook with the theme “harnessing value” after a year in which the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) all share-index had gained 18% compared to a loss of 18% in 2018. 

Top gaining shares in 2019 were led by Sameer Africa which rose 86%, then Equity Group 53%, Longhorn Publishers 46%, KCB 44% and Safaricom 42%. Shares on the bottom side were Kenya Airways which lost 77%, then Uchumi Supermarkets -63% and Mumias Sugar -43%. 

The playbook has a summary of 2019 whose gains were largely due to Safaricom and bank shares, and some of the year’s top deals which included the bank mergers of CBA & NIC and KCB & NBK. Other highlights of the year were the launch of derivative futures and the NSE Ibuka program which has uncovered some promising companies. It also notes the suspension of Mumias which joined Deacons and Athi River Mining as other shares in limbo. 

Outlook for 2020: The report includes a macroeconomic outlook for the country this year during which they expect aggressive domestic borrowing by the government, and the Kenya shilling to range between 100 – 104 against the US dollar. They have also factored in the possibility of another Kenya political referendum happening during 2020. 

Going forward, they expect that bank shares will do well, but that other equities will struggle this year. They look forward to the opportunity that derivatives have brought of diversification with lower trading costs but note that there is a need to have a market-maker to resolve some liquidity difficulties of trading derivatives.

They also note that the main shareholders at Unga and Express may try again to delist their company shares and take advantage of a new rule that reduces the takeover threshold requirement from being approval by 90% of shareholders to just 50%. Genghis also expect that the nationalization of Kenya Airways will be completed in 2020.  

Genghis picks and recommendations:

  • Momentum shares are Equity, EABL, KCB, Safaricom.
  • Income Shares are KCB, Barclays, Co-op Bank, Stanchart, KenGen.
  • Value shares are EABL KenGen, Kenya Re.
  • Buy (expect gains of more than 15%) EABL, Kengen, Kenya Re, KCB, NCBA, and Diamond Trust.
  • Hold (expect changes of between -15% to +14% over the next 12 months) Safaricom, Standard Chartered, Barclays, Equity, Cooperative, Stanbic, and I&M.  
  • Sell Recommendation: N/A

See last year’s picks by Genghis.

EDIT : On June 4, 2020, Genghis Capital announced a partnership with EGM Securities, to offer investors a wider range of alternative asset classes including online currencies, commodities, precious metals, oil, and biotech company stocks.

Kenya launches futures derivatives markets

The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) has gone live with NEXT – futures derivatives trading in a move to enhance risk management and becoming the second exchange in Africa to offer exchange-traded derivatives.

The NSE will offer two types of derivatives; equity single stock futures (SSF) starting with shares of five listed firms that met specific criteria such as high daily trading volumes (British American Tobacco, East Africa Breweries, Equity Group Holdings, Kenya Commercial Bank Group, and Safaricom Plc) as well as an NSE 25 Share Index futures (EIF) that provides investors with a benchmark to track the performance of the Kenyan securities market. The introduction of NEXT futures will also increase trading activity and liquidity at the NSE as investors will have the potential for greater returns, even when share prices are going down (short selling), as they only have to put up a small amount of money as leverage.

This comes after a successful six-month pilot test in which end-to-end derivative transactions were done in a live environment, and which tested the capabilities of market players. Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority (CMA) then granted approval in May 2019 for the NSE to launch and operate the derivatives exchange market.

The CMA has also licensed several entities to undertake derivative services.  The stockbrokers that will offer derivatives futures to investors from today will be African Alliance Securities, AIB Capital, Apex Africa Capital, CBA Capital, Dyer & Blair Investment Bank, Faida Investment Bank, Genghis Capital, Kestrel Capital,  Kingdom Securities, NIC Securities, SBG Securities, Standard Investment Bank and Sterling Capital. Also, two banks, Stanbic and Cooperative, will provide clearing and settlement services, collecting margins and generating data and reports on futures trading activities.

The launch of NEXT derivatives trading comes after a series of other innovations at the NSE including the introductions of the M-Akiba mobile phone bond, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT’s), asset-backed securities and exchange traded funds (ETF’s). If the uptake and performance of stock futures are successful, next at the NSE will be currency derivatives and interest rate derivatives.

EDIT November 2019: The Capital Market Soundness Report- Q3. 2019 from the CMA showed that 349 contracts were traded between 4th July 2019 and 30th September 2019.

Of these, the market traded 248 Safaricom contracts representing a turnover of KES 6.9 million; banking contracts came in second with 58 KCB Group contracts traded at a total turnover of KES 2.3 million; and 26 Equity Bank contracts traded at KES 1.0 million. The NSE 25-Share index contract traded 12 contracts at a total turnover of 2.6M.

Genghis Stock Picks for 2019

Nairobi-based investment bank Genghis Capital launched their 2019 “investor playbook” with the theme of embracing value. 2018 was a challenging year for the Kenyan economy and capital markets and that is expected to continue in 2019, but this also presents opportunities for investors.

Kenya has a relatively small number of stocks (65) on the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) – and Genghis chose nine stocks as their 2019 financial (banking & insurance) and non-financial picks for investors, in three categories:

  • Momentum stocks: Equity Bank, East African Breweries, KCB Group, Safaricom.
  • Income stocks: Stanbic, Barclays Kenya, Standard Chartered, KCB. 
  • Value stocks: Kenya Reinsurance, KCB, Bamburi Cement. 

They cited that Safaricom scored positively in every category while KCB and Equity banks had embraced digitization, high asset quality and low cost structures.

Other points from the playbook launch presentation:

  • They do not expect a repeal of interest rate caps this year, even though its impact has been negative on the economy.
  • Funds raised for infrastructure bonds are not all being used for that; some are going to retire other debts and they should be properly used
  • Public-private partnerships are not coming to fruition; paperwork for the Nairobi-Nakuru highway was submitted in April 2018 but there has been no decision.
  • To a question – “what is the regulator doing to increase the confidence of investors amid fraud incidents?” – the CMA can only do so much and the onus is still on the company directors. International markets have graver penalties than Kenya and perhaps it is time the Director of Public Prosecutions started looking at some cases here and following through on enforcement. 
  • While Kenya Re is a pick in the playbook, they generally don’t cover the insurance sector – it has challenges including fraud, price under-cutting, and low penetration levels (3%) and a lot has to happen to unlock value and growth in the insurance mass market. Kenya Re is there because it is under-valued (owing to lack of clear strategy and proper management) but would be desirable to other insurance investors if the government decided to sell its shareholding.
  • They expect one main listing and others on the smaller NSE boards this year. But while a number of planned privatizations have been mentioned  – Consolidated and Development banks, Kenya Pipeline, Kenya Ports they face numerous hurdles while others like sugar companies in Western Kenya have been on the pipeline since 2011. 

CMA Kenya launches University Financial Literacy Competition

The Capital Markets Authority of Kenya formally launched the 2018 Universities Challenge at KICC in Nairobi on September 25, which aims to equip young people with investment skills and nurture a culture of financial literacy and investing and saving for the future through participation in capital markets.

The 2018 edition of the Universities Challenge, which runs from September 25 to December 31, will feature 6,015 participating students from 37 local universities. They will go through five stages of elimination through testing their financial literacy and knowledge, starting with an online exam, followed by a stage dubbed a “scavenger hunt”, then they will make presentations at universities followed by presentations to CMA staff. There will then be a grand finale event in Nairobi where twelve top students will get to pitch to investment stakeholders, CMA staff and representatives of all universities in the challenge.

Speaking at the launch, CMA CEO Paul Muthaura, said that the average age of entrants was 23 years and that this was as a result of them targeting ongoing students and make them young investors because of the long-term nature of capital markets investments. Also that the use of technology was part of the CMA’s engagement process of expanding financial literacy as well as to transform the visibility of the authority through social media. He added that the CMA was in the middle of implementing a ten-year master plan and had won several awards for being among the most innovative market regulators in Africa.

The winner of the 2018 inter-university competition will get a grand prize of a Kshs 150,000 (~$1,500) portfolio of listed securities of their choice and the university where the student comes from will get investment textbooks worth Kshs 75,000 for its library. Three other winners will get fully paid 3-day educational trips to observe a securities exchange and capital markets regulator in Africa.

Participate in the CMA University Challenge 2018

What can shares worth Kshs. 150,000 do for your life? How about a trip to a foreign country?  How about rewarding your university with books worth Kshs.75, 000? And what about being a guru in investing in the capital markets?

This is what is at stake for the winner of the Capital Markets Authority’s University Challenge 2018. The Challenge is open for undergraduate university students in universities that have confirmed participation. Register for this Challenge from 8th August 2018 to 22nd August 2018. Check the CMA website and social media pages for further details on the University Challenge registration process.