Category Archives: Access Kenya

Nairobi New Media Stocks, 5 Years Later

It’s been over five years since a wave of new media stocks appeared at the Nairobi Stock Exchange  (NSE) including Access Kenya Safaricom, and Scangroup. They are all in the news this month, but for different reasons.
For Access Kenya, the deadline for shareholders to vote on a takeover by Dimension Data was extended by a day due to a national Holiday last week, However, Dimension Data just announced that they have received acceptances from 75% of shareholders and approval the Competition Authority of Kenya and will now proceed with the takeover which will lead to a de-listing of Access Kenya at the NSE.
Safaricom shares seem to have stabilized in the Kshs 7-8 price range after spending quite a bit of time at Kshs 3/=, well below the IPO price of Kshs 5/= in 2008. This disillusioned a lot of retail shareholders who bought their shares hoping to quadruple them when they listed but then had to sell them at a loss. The company has since weathered many changes but remains the market leader in Kenya, thanks largely to M-Pesa and the floundering of their rivals (Orange, Airtel and Essar).
Scangroup got an investment from the WPP, in 2008 who gained a controlling interest for about $18 million. The shares traded at about Kshs 72, and while they have lagged other shares this year, this is still a tremendous gain from the IPO price from Kshs 10.45.
This week, WPP announced, that they would seek to increase their stake to just over 50% in a deal worth about $95 million. This will be done through a combination of cash, new shares and exchange of partnerships in joint companies (Ogilvy & Mather, Ogilvy Africa, Ogilvy (in Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius) Millard Brown (East Africa, and Mauritius), and Hill & Knowlton (East Africa and Africa) which will become full subsidiaries of Scangroup over the next one year.

Private Equity Moment

Access Kenya directors have approved the sale of the company to Dimension Data and will now recommend that all other shareholders vote in favour of the deal at a shareholders EGM on August 20, 2013. The company will forward this circular to all the company’s 28,000 shareholders and need to get a 75% vote approving the deal which will pay Kshs. 14 (~$0.16) per share and also de-list the company from the Nairobi Securities Exchange just six years after an IPO and listing.

Elsewhere, the government has agreed to waive the requirement that local Kenyans have to own 20% of the company after the Dimension Data takeover.
Other Deals

Big Milk: According to the Standard, dairy giant Brookside has acquired a majority stake in rival Molo Milk – continuing a pattern of the company buying out its rival’s and consolidation in the milk processing sector.
Unfriendly Oil: Kenol Kobil is fighting off the takeover of a prime petrol station at Yaya area, Nairobi by a rival company – Hashi Energy. KenolKobil (management) claim an armed gang of 20 people raided the petrol station, kicked out its staff, and rebranded the outlet with the Hashi Energy logo.
Recent M&A deals approved by the Kenya Competition Authority include:
Automobiles
– The acquisition of DT Dobie Kenya (distributors of Jeep, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Renault, Chrysler) by Toyota Tsusho Corporation – with a provision that implies that there will be some separation of brands above and below 1,800 cc.
– The acquisition of Cica Motors Kenya (distributors  of Hyundai Trucks and Greatwall brands) by Toyota Tsusho Corporation
Banking, Insurance & Finance
The acquisition of Iroko Securities by Ecobank Development Corporation.
 
Health & Beauty
The acquisition of Laborex Kenya and Epdis Kenya by Toyota Tsusho Corporation.
Technology
– The acquisition of Comztek Holdings by Datatec in a South African deal valued at 88 million rand (Kshs 767 million)
– The purchase of all assets of Interest Africa by BSS Africa (Belgium Satellite Services)

KQ-KLM: The Competition Authority also exempted the joint venture agreement between Kenya Airways and KLM Royal Dutch Airline from the provisions of section 21 of the Competition Act which prohibits the abuse of a dominant position in the Kenyan market.

Shares Portfolio May 2013

Performance: Compared to last quarter and year ago, the portfolio is up 9% in value from February (excluding new investments), while the NSE 20 share index is up is up 7.5% since February 2013.
The Stable
Barclays ↑
Bralirwa (Rwanda) ↑
Centum  (ICDCI) ↑
Diamond Trust ↑
East African Portland Cement ↓
Equity Bank ↑
KCB ↑
Kenol ↓
Safaricom ↑
Scangroup ↓
Stanbic (Uganda) ↑
Unga ↑
Changes
In: Centum, Portland Cement
Out: Total, EABL
Increase: Equity, Kenol, Safaricom
Decrease: None
Best performer: Safaricom (up 30%), Equity, Stanbic  
Worst performer: Kenol (down 29%)

Looking forward to:

– Dividends from Equity, Barclays, KCB, Scangroup, Bralirwa and Safaricom.
– Coldtusker writes about upcoming rights issues at the NSE including Uchumi and National Bank. 
– Still yet to venture into Kenya government treasury bonds a year later.

Other Events:

– Access Kenya is being bought out by Dimension Data and will be de-listed from the Nairobi stock exchange – pending regulatory approval, shareholder approval, and no better offers.
– Citi released bearish reports during the Kenya election on Equity and KCB based on unsustainable interest rates, and growing non performing loans, among other issues in the Kenyan banking sector. 
– Citi also had a report on Kenya Airways predicting two more years of losses, difficulty financing Boeing 787 planes without raising more capital, that is probably beyond the appetite of current KQ shareholders and other NSE investors. It mentioned the possibility of Etihad Airways extending their new code share partnership into an investment in KQ, but the airline has to remain 51% Kenyan owned in order to enjoy preferential African route rights. Other large shareholders in the airline are teh Government of Kenya, KLM airline, and the International Finance Corporation.
– The Safaricom 2013 results (PDF) results released this morning showed that revenue grew by 16% to $1.45 billion (including MPesa revenue of $256 million) and profit before tax grew 47% to $300 million. 
– Umeme of Uganda which cross-listed at the NSE has still not had a trade in Kenya despite some okay performance in the last few months.

Reading the Access Kenya Tea Leaves

one of three
Over the last few years’ shareholders have voted to allow their companies to reproduce abridged financial statement summaries in the newspaper. One of the benefits of these resolutions would be to reduce costs of administering to thousands of shareholder, who previously were entitled to receive a full copy of a company’s audited results by mail.

Now companies have the full accounts on their websites for shareholders, to download, with a summary of the annual general meeting notice, dividend, chairman statement, and financial summary that appear in daily newspapers.

Limited numbers of the accounts are still printed and kept at the company premises, and distributed to analysts, partners, or to any shareholder who requests one. However most shareholders do not have Internet access or computers to read these PDF’s and may miss out on some details of events at the company.

Three companies are about to have their annual general meetings in the next few days, and have all converted to the digital format in lieu of printed copies. Kenya Airways and Safaricom both had their financial year-end in March 2010, while Access Kenya has had a good year (2009), but their meeting was delayed by boardroom wrangles which saw a new chairman brought in, and later by a drop in first half 2010 results (announced earlier this month).

AGM – Auditors Deloitte continue in office (new Chairman Mr. Ndonye was a long time partner there)
– Shareholders will be asked to endorse a concluded deal to buy out the remaining 30% in Openview, which they describe as a company that sells IT equipment to enterprises and corporate customers. Openview had sales in 2009 of 165 million, up from 147m the year before, but it seems the minority owners opted to sell the company to AK (their right under original sale agreement), and a settlement was reached where payment was made by share transfers, but they also agreed to pay Kshs 38 million to settle some claims by AK group biz daily

Notes – Dividend of 0.3 shillings per share will be paid for 2009, amounting to about Kshs 62 million
– AK still enjoys benefit of listing as a group by paying 20% in income tax compared to subsidiaries and other Kenyan corporates, which pay 30%
– Borrowings are up to 724 million (57m in 2009), but overdraft has been reduced from 166 million to 30 million. The group still has an overdraft position of 128 million. The loans are from NIC Bank and CFC Stanbic for both US$ and KES, with the bulk of this borrowing is in US$ which is cheaper (3%) is cheaper than the shillings ones (7%), unless the shilling depreciated significantly. Interest expenses for the year were 44 million compared to 6 million in 2008
– Communications solutions limited charged 370 million as management fee and owes 364 million
– Fibre: AK paid 106 million as investment into TEAMS (62.5 shares)

Shareholders: Has 32,674 shareholders and while there are some top shareholder changes, the AK ESOP has increased stake in the company

Website AK has an active presence on twitter, but is hounded by claims of poor customer service. Also from Twitter: The board has indicated there is strong interest in acquiring the company from three Telco’s but Safaricom have denied being one of them
-@bankelele reading vacationing @alykhansatchu in the star – safaricom share dips back below IPO price as CEO denies interest in buying access kenya
– @jgmbugua MJ is lying. I have impeccable information that they have approached AccessKenya at least three times. TKL, Airtel interested too
– @coldtusker @jgmbugua @bankelele Maybe in the past but does #AccessKenya add real value to @SafaricomLtd today? [I say no]

New Media Companies Redux

It’s been two years since this blog post comparing Access Kenya and Scangroup which debuted at the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) at about the same time. They are both back in the news this week for diverse reasons along with a third ‘new media’ company Safaricom, which debuted later in 2008 on the NSE.

Scangroup: has just announced plans to buy stakes of 51% in Ogilvy & Mather Africa and 50% of Ogilvy East Africa. (statement here) – two companies are both subsidiaries of UK’s WPP Group who own 27% of Scangroup.

The investor at the Scangroup notes that group has recorded growing ads in TV and radio but declining in print media. In 2009, the communications sector was their largest customers with 29% followed by finance at 15%. Scangroup has 61% of the advertising market in Kenya followed by Access Leo Burnett with 13% and then Ogilvy & Mather with 10% – while their plans going forward are to do more online adverting and take the Ogilvy as their main brand across Africa

a version of this Safaricom by Squad digital, a Scangroup venture appears in the NY Times pages

Access Kenya: are in the news (details here) following their postponed by another three months of the annual general meeting that was to have taken place yesterday May 4 and payment of their divided. The company has not commented beyond a press statement.

From the blogs: On AK – a year ago, they were very very liquid while as recently as two months ago, they were hailed as a must buy stock.
from Twitter @bankelele not a shareholder, but as a concerned proxy lack of info is bad. AK should issue a profit warning or cautionary statement on restructuring
@mainaT I figure if AccessK is struggling now when internet is a growth sector, its got issues & a cash flow problem that won’t go a way 4 a while…but, Centum did the same in late 08 early 09 when it was having Cflow issues that meant it couldn’t pay a dividend
@roomthinker: Access Kenya customers, used to their speeds were not surprised to learn their AGM would be late
@coldtusker Y announce a dividend if u have CF shyte? For AK to say, ‘no div coz expanding’ is easy & plausible. Or pay only 5 cents like safcom…I think this is a bigger issue… Sold off at 22 so dont really care but I think they are in play. AK cud always delay div after AGM…I think less of cashflow issue. More of a acquisition/takeover/sale matter http://bit.ly/aJVCMm [#nairumours]

Finally we have Safaricom who initiated a spat with the government [statement here] after the Minister for Information (gazetted new rules for the sector including a fair competition one (draft here) and accusing the government regulator, Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) of seeking to curtail Safaricom’s growth through price controls and to allow competitors to increase their market share.

The next day the three other mobile companies, Yu, Orange, and Zain replied in a joint statement applauding the new rules and saying they were not targeted at anyone (read Safaricom) but anyone who abuses of a dominant position in the market CCK had adopted international practices to bring real competition to the mobile sector.

This is new ground for Safaricom – when Orange raised a fuss about the uncompetitive Kenyan market, it looked like GoK would side with large taxpaying Safaricom, but now that all the small (unprofitable, they admit) new mobile entrants have teamed up, some token measures are likely to be brought to rein in Safaricom which is estimated to control at least 80% of the mobile sector by most measures. How do you bring down Safaricom from 80% to 60%?