Category Archives: Nairobi Stock Exchange

7th BAFM – Building African Financial Markets – Day One

The 7th BAFM – Building African Financial Markets seminar was officially opened by Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto with a joke that it was important that the organizers, who were the African Securities Exchange Association with the Nairobi Securities Exchange go out and clarify the difference “stock exchanges” and “stock theft” which is a big menace in Kenya. He then mentioned that securities exchanges provided assets protection and wealth creation and that some companies that the government had divested from like Kengen, Safaricom, and KCB were now among the leading institutions in Africa.

He asked the capital markets to help revive the agricultural sector and urged them to work on a commodities exchange and use block chain to create a ledger for collateral, and that he hoped the summit would redirect shareholders attention to the opportunities that reward vigilant, flexible and innovative investors.

One of the highlights of the day was a talk by Terry Adembesa who explained the complex processes and long steps that the Nairobi Securities Exchange has to go through to introduce new products and to persuade companies to list on the exchange. He explained how they had passed regulations to allow derivatives trading and short selling (which they plan to introduce later in 2018 for selected equities_ and to also allow market making by selected firms for stocks and bonds. They had made strides get pension and insurance funds to recognize their new products like Real Estate Investment Trust’s (REIT’s) and lobbied alongside Barclays to get Exchanged Traded Funds as an accepted class of equities that local funds could buy into. They had also lobbied the Kenya Revenue Authority to waive taxes on development REIT’s.

He added that African exchanges like Kenya’s have low volumes compared to Johannesburg and Mauritius; they mainly trade equities, with low participation from local investors (Trading at the Nairobi Exchange is 35% by local investors compared to 100% in many Asian markets) and later this meshed well with a nice presentation on the African Financial Markets Index by George Asante of Barclays Africa. It was a nice illustration of the maturity levels of stock exchanges in 17 countries that constitute 60% of GDP of Africa, with a startling finding that there was a significant cost borne by African countries by them not having effective capital markets.

Sallianne Taylor explained how Bloomberg  collects data and showcases African companies and exchanges to the wider world, facilitating financial leaders and exchanges to meet investors and financial journalists, while Nora Owako traced the evolution of Safaricom’s M-Pesa which has changed over the years to match the needs of consumers and now encompasses international remittances, savings, loans, utility payments, and merchant finance.

Another striking revelation was by David Waithaka of Cellulant during one of the afternoon panels on fintech as an enabler. The company, which was founded in Kenya, had run a platform in Nigeria that had connected 15 million farmers to 6,000 agro-dealers for farmers to get inputs and with commercial banks providing bridging finance to agro-dealers as they awaited reimbursements from the government. The program had a redemption rate of 59% and through it, farmer incomes improved from $700 to $1,800. It was later extended to rice and saw $2.4 million worth of commodity trades in two months. It is being rolled out in Liberia and event participants asked” Why not Kenya?”!

One of the shocks of the first day of the BAFM was from Joseph Tegbe of KPMG Nigeria who gave a talk on cybersecurity and warned that there was a real possibility that countries could use cyber attacks to target and destabilize the stock exchanges of other countries.

NSE Chairman Samuel Kimani thanked the BAFM gold sponsors – Bloomberg and Barclays, silver ones – CMA Kenya, Safaricom, Kengen, EFG Hermes, and others. The day ended with news during a panel on fintech as an enabler, that Barclays launched a green mortgage product, offering cheaper financing for energy-efficient homes

Day one of the 7th BAFM – Building African Financial Markets seminar was held at the Villa Rosa Kempinski Hotel in Nairobi Kenya on April 19, 2018. 

Nairobi hosts the 7th BAFM – Building African Financial Markets seminar

This week sees Nairobi host the 7th Building African Financial Markets (BAFM) seminar with the theme of “adaptive innovation as a lever for growth and sustainable development of financial markets”. 

News of the seminar was unveiled by Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) CEO, Geoffrey Odundo in January 2018 when Barclays launched its Africa Financial Markets Index (AFMI) report in Nairobi. The Barclays AFMI measured African stock exchanges by six pillars of market depth, access to foreign exchange, market transparency, macro-opportunity, enforceability of agreements and capacity of local investors, and it ranked South Africa on top, with Kenya in fifth place.

The NSE and the African Securities Exchanges Association are organizers of the BAFM event with  Bloomberg and Barclays as gold sponsors. The ASEA, which was founded in 1993 with the Nairobi Stock Exchange as the first member, now has a membership of 40 African stock exchanges.

The BAFM will be officially opened by William Ruto, the Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya. It will feature leaders and speakers from organizations such as Nasdaq, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, EFG-Hermes – a Cairo-based investment bank that is new to Nairobi, and Safaricom, while some of the sessions of great interest are likely to include “a blueprint for orderly markets in Africa”, M-Akiba; the $30 mobile-phone government bond as a disruptive technology reshaping African financial markets, “building new markets in frontier economies”, a guide for managing cyber risk, linking African exchanges organically, and “is blockchain the future of finance or a flash in the pan?”.

Reading the Tea Leaves at Kurwitu Ventures

Kurwitu Ventures published their 2017 accounts last month. The company listed on the Growth Enterprises Market Segment (GEMS) of the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) back in November 2014 at a premium price of Kshs 1,250 per share. The GEMS segment was created was created to give small and medium enterprises an easier route to the capital markets through lower requirements such as being in operation and audited accounts for just a year and took take steps to improve their governance

Their 2017 report notes that Kurwitu offers Shariah-compliant investments and asset management services – including Sukuk securities (Islamic bonds) – and their key focus remains on agriculture investments. The company may also invest with others persons in pass-through ventures such as REIT’s and investment notes – and such products may not appear on the group balance sheet.

In their original listing document (PDF), the company had forecast to generate revenue through three sources; from early-stage equity investments (generated by investing Kshs 100M in in projects in 2015, up to Kshs 200M in 2017), doing three (3) pass through investments a year of about Kshs 400 M in value – out of which they would earn a 1.5% fee and finally, corporate financial advisory deals for which they would earn a minimum of Kshs 4 M per deal. But in 2017, the company lost Kshs 10 million (10 M) compared to a loss of Kshs 14 M the year before. They had revenue of Kshs 317 shillings (all interest income, and still an amazingly low amount of interest income in relation to their bank balances) while they had revenue of Kshs 20,885 in 2016.

Directors at the time of listing were Abdikadir Hussein Mohamed, Mohamed Abdirahman Hassan, Sumayya Hassan Athmani, Jamal Isaak Ibrahim, Abdikadir Mohammed Haji, and Abdirahman Abdillahi and shareholders were Abdirahman Abdillahi (51%), Mohammed A. Hassan (27%), Ali Daud Mohamed (4%), Noordin M Haji (4%) and Anas Ibrahim Hussein (4%).  Abdirahman Abdillahi and Mohammed Hassan have since reduced their stakes in Kurwitu. To date, shareholders have lent Kshs 70 million to Kurwitu (including 20M in 2017) and these loans, which have no repayment date or interest charged, can be converted to shares at a value of Kshs 1,400 per share – and the current outstanding loans are equivalent to 50,000 shares against the current 102,000 issues shares. The company is authorized to have 125,000 shares.

The company created an asset management subsidiary in March 2015 that is 99.9% owned by Kurwitu Ventures and 0.01% by Abdirahman Abdillahi (the managing director). It has 3 plots of land in Lamu – Magongoni that it bought for 102 million and which it has owned since its listing, while in 2015 they bought another parcel in Lamu – Lake Kenyatta for Kshs 4 million.

In 2017, the company had Kshs 6 million (6M) in the bank, paid 5 M in salaries and another 3M in professional fees. Their accounts were audited by Abdulhamid & company. This accumulated losses at the end of  2017 were Kshs  44 million, compared to Kshs 33 M the previous year.

Other companies on the GEMS segment of the NSE include Home Afrika, Flame Tree, and Nairobi Business Ventures. Cytonn Investments, which was granted a fund manager license last month, also plans to list under GEMS later this year, while Atlas has already exited.

Using the AMIB50 ETF to track Africa Investments

A new fund offers South African investors a chance to invest in 50 large, non-South African companies that are listed on other exchanges and in other countries across Africa. The AMI Big50 ex-SA AMIB50  ETF (exchange traded fund) was launched at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on April 20.

The ETF is promoted by investment firm – Cloud Atlas Investing and targets institutional and retail investors, offering them a way to invest away from the Rand and South Africa. The current basket of the fund is composed of Itissalat Al Maghrib (Maroc Telecom) (20.6% of the fund), Coml.Intl.Bank (Egypt) (11%), Lafargeholcim Maroc, Guaranty Trust Bank, Safaricom (4.3%), Nigerian Breweries, Tanzania Breweries, Mcb Group Ltd, Attijariwafa Bank and Delta.

In terms of countries, exposure to Morocco 28.4%, Egypt 19.3%, Nigeria 13.7% and Kenya 11%, and for sectors, the spread is banking shares 29.3%, telecom firms 27.8%, food & beverage 17.7%, and industrial ones 14.6%.

Investors need to have a brokerage or custody account in South Africa to buy the AMIB50 and the fund management fee is a total of 1.17% per year.

Nairobi Stockbrokers Take a Bath

Last week saw the release of financial results of SBG Securities (formerly CFC Stanbic Financial Services/CSFS). They are the first stockbroker (they are actually licensed as an Investment Bank) to release their 2016 results and this was done along with the release of the results of Stanbic Bank and their common parent – Stanbic Holdings.

At SBG Securities, revenue dropped from Kshs 599 to Kshs 294 million. This was mainly due to stockbrokerage commissions which reduced from Kshs 399 to Kshs 223 million. Expenses were largely unchanged except for salaries that went down from Kshs 183 to 142 million.

SBG’s pre-tax profit for the year was Kshs 3 million, which was substantially down from Kshs 277 million in 2015. Their balance sheet also reduced down from Kshs 1 billion to 648 million. SBG is the number 3 stockbroker in Kenya with 13.8% share, and in
2015, SBG was second in brokerage commission behind Kestrel Capital.

In a notice sent to clients, they reported that turnover at the Nairobi Securities Exchange for the year was Kshs 294 billion compared to Kshs 419 billion in 2015. Also, that market weakness is expected to continue in 2017. But they added:

A new year always starts on a high with each of us drafting our investment/ financial resolutions. As the year progresses, so do our plans and at times they don’t necessarily materialize. 2017 can be the year that you fulfill your investment resolutions by investing in shares listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. Whilst the market has hit an 8-year low, we believe this is the time to invest.