Category Archives: First Africa Capital

Unilever Bails

Redux: Things I missed on Kutwa Tuesday

Business Daily: My favorite newspaper is cutting back on online content to charge subscribers $ 132 per year?

Unilever (UK) have applied to buy the under-valued shares from minority shareholders – and if they succeed they will de-list from the NSE. They are offering to buy shares at 62 shillings ($0.95) when they had previously traded at 45/=. Unilever owns 88.23% of the Kenyan subsidiary and need less than 2% to reach their target of 90% and are already within reach [shares from the NSSF or Jubilee and KCB pensions’ will tip them over]

Other exchange changeovers’ have taken places [Serena and CFC] but they companies have continued to trade at the NSE. The NSE / CMA are loath to lose companies, and with (now) 6 suspended companies, this will be interesting. Both Carbacid and BOC were knee-capped by the CMA and their shareholders missed out on the NSE bull run over the last three years [both shares have been suspended since December 2005!]

Streak over briefly: Safaricom has dominated the market since the day it was listed, but yesterday was the first day that another company’s’ shares were traded more than Safaricom since June 9th [KCB had 45.7 million rights traded at ~Kshs. 5 as the Government’s 51 million rights which it forfeited were snapped up by other investors]

Results of the Housing Finance rights issue were released showing that it was fully subscribed [raising Kshs. 2.37 billion], though not wildly over-subscribed (3%?). Either the offer, was not enticing, or people have gotten smart enough not to pay for more than they know they will get (80% of those who applied paid for only what they were allocated, 23% applied for more), those who over will get 74% of extras shares, while Equity and Britak will gets 100% of what they applied for [as the Government and NSSF did not take part]). The big winner are transaction advisers First Africa Capital who are set to bag about Kshs. 31 million [$476,000] from the rights issue

Interest rates have quietly crept up in 2008. The Barclays Bond which closed today had rates of 11.5% for investors as do standard chartered fixed deposits as new loans from Barclays and Equity have crossed upwards of the 20%.

Jobs
most from the daily papers this week

Akili Africa: entry level programmers, ERP implementation consultants, customer relationship manager. d/l is 21/7

Capital Markets Authority: ICT manager, assistant managers [research & product development, policy analysis & planning, procurement & logistics, finance, investigations, ICT, human resources] officers [senior compliance, investigations, senior investigations, customer service, senior policy analysis & planning, legal enforcement, legal framework, policy analysis & planning] analysts [senior financial, financial, stores] d/l is 25/7 by snail mail 74800-00200 to the Acting CEO

CEO of the Constituencies development fund : apply by 31/7 using snail mail

EABL: sales director apply to hr.recruitment@eabl.com

Pilots at Kenya Airways

Management trainees at KCB. D/l is 16/7

Nairobi Stock Exchange: surveillance officer (detect illegal behavior/trades) . apply to recruitment@nse.co.ke by 18/7

Sameer Africa: head of procurement, planning, logistics, ERP administrator, network & systems administrator hr@sameerafrica.com by 21/7

MY gOVErNment
a bit of wishful political – mini-reshuffle
Ministry of Roads: John Michuki
Ministry of Finance: Peter Kenneth
Ministry of Environment: Amos Kimunya
Assistant Minister Home Affairs: Chirau Mwakwere
Minister for Transport: Franklin Bett

Godfather

Out of the box thinking
First Africa Capital is a different sort of investment bank. I find their alternative financing proposals refreshing because Kenya is a country littered with down and out organizations in need of capital – and while other investment Banks mainly chase after blue chip companies and projects, First Africa pursues innovative ways to enable struggling companies secure valuable resources and opportunities. Some of their recent, but unsuccessful, client venture include, Telkom Kenya’s bid to buy more safaricom shares from Vodaphone, Equity Building Society’s (now Bank) offer to revive (collapsed) Daima Bank, start up financing for Econet Wireless Kenya – and now parastatal National Oil Corporation’s bid for the assets of BP Kenya.

Job opportunities

National Aids Control Council
– Economist (financing strategy)
– Monitoring & evaluation control specialist
– database administrator
Apply to the Director, NACC by November 25.

Community Officer at Kituo Cha Sheria, a leading Human Rights and Legal Aid NGO. Applicants should have bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences, 1 year experience in community organisation & development and excellent counselling paralegal & computer skills. Apply to the executive director by November 15

Simbanet a leading IT company is seeking
– head of customer support; applicants must have A+, N+ or CCNA, MCSR and 2 years ISP experience
– support engineer for VSAT: must have recognised IT diploma or degree, and be CCNA/CCNP certified with good knowledge of IP addressing, routing, DNS web servers and with 2 to 3 years working at an ISP
– junior accountant: part qualified CPA or ACCA, with 2 to 3 years experience and be not older than 27.
Apply to jobs@simbanet.co.ke by November 21.

Trust Fund Manager at the national Environmental Management Authority (NEMA)
Job entails administering a trust fund, create an award scheme, network and write proposals for fund raising and sustaining donor relationships. Applicants must have a communications degree (marketing specialization) and some NGO experience. Apply to the Director General NEMA P. O. Box 68839-00200 Nairobi by November 25.

Senior Policy Analysts at the Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA). Applicants must have PhD in economics and 5 years policy research and analysis experience. Apply to Hilda@kippra.or.ke by November 24.

Country Manager at IAT, an ACT learning organization. Applicants must be aged 30 – 40 with MBA or CPA II, with at least 8 years experience (of which 5 were as a manager and 2 managing a profit center). Apply to the Human Resource Director at opportunities@iat.co.ke by November 18. (Include a max 300 word essay explaining how you will contribute to the position)

research, monitoring & evaluation officer at the coastal rural support program of the Aga Khan Foundation. Applicants should have an advanced social sciences or development degree, with some NGO and strategic planning experience. Apply to crsp-k@africaonline.co.ke by November 25.

internal auditor (hr/aud/01/05) at Del Monte Kenya. Applicants should have a commerce or business degree, be fully qualified accountants under age 40, be familiar with the Sarbanes Oxley act and agricultural organization and have 5 years audit experience. Apply to nanasi@delmonte.co.ke by November 16.

finance & administration manager at the intermediate technology development group (ITDG) applicants must have a business degree, be fully qualified accountants be familiar with contract accounting and NGO work and also have 5 years experience, 3 at managerial level. Apply to recruitment@itdg.or.ke by November 23.

policy manager at ActionAid International Kenya. Applicants should have masters in social sciences, with at least 5 years experience in development work, policy research and advocacy, understanding of public policies and laws, networking, lobbying & communications skills and be willing to travel outside Kenya. Apply by November 21 to hr@actionaid.org

Other opportunities

Cable distribution
Cablevision is seeking distributors of their digital cable TV with 80 channels. Contact Sachin Shaha at sachin@cablevision.co.ke

Survey for Citizen Report Card in Kenya: WSP-AF has embarked on an 18-month Consumer Voice project in selected cities in Africa with the objective of creating larger scale and more direct links with consumers, deepening consumers’ understanding of water sector reform and water and sanitation issues, and strengthening informed consumer voice in water supply and sanitation service reform and management. The vehicle WSP-AF proposes to use is the Citizen Report Card. The Citizen Report Card (CRC) is a simple but powerful tool to provide public agencies with systematic feedback from users by collecting citizen feedback on the quality and adequacy of public services from actual users. CRC’s s will be implemented in three cities in Kenya: Mombasa, Kisumu and Nairobi and an experienced and professional survey firm will be contracted to undertake the data collection that forms the basis for the Report Card. Expressions of Interest (EOI), in electronic format, are invited from suitable firms with the following characteristics; Experience with sample surveys of this magnitude in Kenya, Kenya-based staff, a track record of rigorous quality control and excellent reporting. The deadline for submission of the EOI is November 16 at 16 00 hrs.

non-runners in the news
Nationals of other countries were granted exemptions, but Kenyans still require transit visas to pass through South Africa.

Some ex-Maseno Boys accomplish themselves at college basketball in the USA

anyang nyongo week: The minister, quite rightly, pointed out that it is difficult for SME’s to borrow money from banks at affordable rates and conducive terms. But he also poured cold water only the recently concluded privatization of Kenya Railways.

Godfather
Finally, Nation’s NTV is showing The Godfather Trilogy on Monday nights after 9:30 and has now run two weeks of the series. The trilogy rearranges the three films into a proper chronological sequence (De Niro – Brando – Pacino) and also has extra scenes that were never shown in the theatrical versions (and which I have never seen). But it’s frustrating whoever edits the series at NTV has been cutting off scenes inappropriately to insert commercial and promos for other Nation shows.

Limited Options for Daima Bank

The Sunday Standard has a story on Daima Bank, which has been under statutory management by the CBK since March 2003.

Shareholders and depositors will meet on December 14th where they will be asked to accept a buyout of the institution or wind it up. The bank needs to be re-capitalized by 250 million shillings

Shareholders are being “pressured” to accept the offer on the table from First Africa Capital which they feel is too low i.e. to inject capital of 220 million shillings and pay depositors 25% of their money. (FAC is South Africa based company whose famous Kenyan face is Wanjiku Mugane) They will also take over 800m debts of the bank. Shareholders had rejected an earlier offer from First Africa to pay 22% of depositors.

The article further alleges that CBK blocked two offers from Fina Bank (to pay 25% of their deposits) and Capital Alliance (to pay 65% of deposits) Earlier, Mbeki Enterprises Incorporated (http://www.mbekiusa.com/) got cold feet and withdrew its offer to buy 49% of the bank for 250 million.