Category Archives: Safaricom IPO

Regional IPO Tales

Undugu gani huu?: One of my favorite entertainment sites is Bossip with its catchy headlines, like Making it Rain on These ****, Jesus Take The Wheel, and ** sit down, all of which apply in this case, but the best way to answer this story is BROTHER PLEASE! – while Uganda and Rwanda have joined thousands of Kenyans embracing the investment vehicle that is the Safaricom IPO, it appears the Bank of Tanzania is preventing Tanzanians from buying shares in Safaricom through the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange. (hat tip RO)

Africa investment resource: africanshareholder.com is a great site to keep up with investment happenings in Africa.

Celtel IPO On: Sadly, not in Kenya, but in Zambia starting at the end of April – with 20% of the local subsidiary on offer.

Executive privilege: one reason that ministerial seats/portfolios are in great demand in Kenya is the power that comes with then such as the authority to insert one’s buddys’ names on state corporation (parastatal) boards and these become law once they run in the weekly Kenya gazette. Sometimes one can even create new boards such as the new Brand Kenya Board which has been formed to market Kenya in the fields of tourism, investment, creditworthiness and international relations.

IPO Tales: 13 days to go

– Oversubscription: If 9 million Kenyans voted last year it’s possible a ¼ of them will buy shares. Or that ½ the people with bank accounts will apply for shares. On that, with two weeks to go, new banks with IPO loans include KCB (Uganda), CFC and even high street CBA.

Happy banks: Two banks may have crossed the 1 billion shilling mark for new IPO loans after just a week. They are also earning other fees such as placement/facilitation/arrangement of 1 – 2% of each loan, fees for bankers cheques, returned cheques, money transfer and other myriad charges from the IPO process.

And the fine print of many bank loans lack clauses that deal with some critical questions which borrowers should be asking before they take out 3 year loans, such as;

– If I don’t get a full allocation, can I pay back say 80% or entire loan of loan immediately?
– If shares rise to 10 shillings can I sell my shares in June and pay the bank?
– If price drops to 4 shillings and I want to cut my losses, can I sell the shares?

Multiple share accounts: CDS gets 30 shillings per application, and the transaction managers have warned retail investors not to open many accounts and apply for IPO shares in many names. I saw one I-bank report, which mentions that investors who do this will be charged a 1.5% consolidation fee, but that is not contained in the prospectus.

IPO Hard Choices

It’s getting very hard to stick with my avowed IPO bypass plan with Safaricom. The market is so liquid now, and may dry up later, so why not take advantage of it now? Also, I read one I-bank analysis of IPO’s in the last few years, that shows that all (except Eveready) have significantly out-performed their IPO price, and Safaricom is not Eveready! Still, reading Maishinski comments here about paying a premium, and likely refunds, there’s still great upside for capital appreciation, in a company growing at 30% a year with a likely dividend of 0.15 this year.

just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!
More IPO

  • Banks versus Brokers Dyer & Blair have set up an IPO center on Loita St. that is open 7 days a week (weekdays 7am to 7pm). Brokers have to fight tooth and nail with commercial banks to get their IPO commissions since the banks have a much larger branch presence to earn a 1% commission on each application. That’s why stockbrokers can be found in supermarkets, cybercafés and bank halls (the latest is Drummond and Suntra brokers at Consolidated Bank) selling IPO’s to earn their 1.5% commissions. You are sometimes scared of making contact with a sales agent when you walk past a bank tent or broker desk in a movie hallway with Safaricom brochures and forms waiting.
  • What’s worse than taking an IPO loan? Paying for shares using a Barclays card (or debit card)
  • Regional: the first confirmation of an over-subscription comes the East African with a report that NSSF Uganda will get 1/3 of the shares they applied for – or about $11 million worth (out of $34 million). [1.3% of the shares on offer].
  • CFC takes the IPO to Rwanda via Fina Bank.
  • International: Wambia Capital offers US institutional investors and high net-worth individuals a chance to invest in Safaricom service only applicable to sophisticated investors for secondary market issues.
  • Boardroom dealing: Former LSK Chairman Former LSK chair makes a damning accusation about Mobitelea and its cabinet allies.

One week gone

The Safaricom IPO is one week old today

IPO briefs
– Reason #1 to have government as a shareholder = tax breaks!: Not that Safaricom needs any, but the increase in share capital to Kshs. 6 billion has been exempted from stamp duty by the Finance Minister – saving the company about 6 million shillings ($94,000)
– Across the border: From Uganda we hear that Dyer & Blair is selling the shares at shopping malls, as is Uganda Telecom, while Standard Chartered Uganda is offering margin loans of up to Ushs. 50 million to buy IPO shares (~370,000 shares) what about Tanzania?
– More finance; Equity bank give the privileged Safaricom employees up to 100% finance, while even Barclays is hawking shares at it’s 112 branches. Also add Equatorial and K-Rep to the banks offering 100% finance
– Proactive MP : from an offline story in the Nation Nyeri Town MP Ms. Murugi Mathenge and the Nyeri South DC hosted an investors briefing on the Safaricom IPO. I hope other MP’s are as enterprenual and in touch with their constituents.

Opportunities

jobs on offer
from the papers

Top government vacancies
– Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK): director general & CEO who will regulate Safaricom and the telecommunications sector
– Director general at the Kenya civil aviation authority (KCAA)

Banking
– Equity Bank business growth & development managers, credit corporate relationship managers, credit managers
– KCB: business development manager, head, facilities & property management
– Gulf African bank: legal officer, corporate relationship managers, (Nairobi, Mombasa), manager structured finance recruitment@gulfafricanbank.com by 11/4

Others
– ICT Manager at Safari Park Hotel
– East African breweries: IS lead – great lakes region, logistic manager
– Telkom Kenya Chief HR Officer.
– Program assistant at the Open society institute for eastern Africa OSIEA

blog-exclusive!: Following the outcry over the announced large (bloated), a government committee has come up with an ideal ideal cabinet for Kenya of just 16 Ministers! fit in the names

IPO Train: full on board

It’s now the fourth official day of the Safaricom IPO, with some banks and brokers working over 7 days processing applications. And, over the weekend, many of the negatives of the IPO turned into positives;

Politics align: The IPO was launched last Friday by President Mwai Kibaki, who placed a personal application for 1 million shares, worth 5 million shillings ((0.01% of the shares on offer) . Since then the ODM side have also changed tune of the IPO matter, as they realized that as leaders they have to guide their people – and one of the ways to do so is to enlighten them on opportunities of wealth building and methods of advancement beyond agricultural and real estate productivity. Why tell people not to buy shares, when other communities buy the shares? What do you want your people to do? In any case the public holds minority stakes in most NSE companies with over half the shareholding hidden behind other companies whose shareholders are not well known.

Competitive sisters: Kengen was a watershed IPO but that was 2 years ago. The last massive regional IPO was Stanbic Uganda – how do they compare?

Company; Stanbic : Safaricom
Target; (Ushs 70 billion) USS$ 38 million: (Kshs. 50 billion) US$ 770 million
Beneficiaries; Standard Bank (SA) & Government of Uganda ; Government of Kenya only
Shares on offer; 1 billion shares : 10 billion shares
Share price; (Kshs. 3) $0.04 : (Kshs. 5) $0.08
Oversubscription 3 X : (2X is a conservative estimate)
Applications: 37,000 ; (1 million expected)

Animal Metaphors: We now have CNBC Africa which has been live for about a month and it’s a great channel to watch especially late at night, when they are covering Asia or American markets. Last week, they were discussing the US banking crisis and one analyst used the Sherlock Holmes tale of the dog that did not bark in the night to reflect on the silence of Japanese banks that were heavy investors in US mortgage securities but have not declared any losses.

The animal metaphor with Safaricom – is the elephant in the room which everyone is ignoring and that is Vodafone (UK): Did they want the IPO? I doubt it – they are not making money from the IPO, and will go from having a cozy boardroom, to having a million shareholders (estimate) demanding phones and umbrella’s at AGM’s.

– They are reluctant partners in this who for the last three years (and long before Mobitelea became a Matatu name) they had tried to buy 9% or 11% of Safaricom from the Government of Kenya, for a figure far less than the Government will raise from the public. Vodafone will remain the largest shareholder with 40% (or 35%) to GoK’s 35% , and retain veto power over business plans, budget, and CEO & FC appointments. But most companies listed on the NSE have parent companies who find it prudent to retain at least 50% of the company’s ownership to control the strategic and management direction of a company – and could they be buying any floating shares out there after listing? They can own up to 60% of Safaricom.
– It has exposed the embarrassing practices that gave rise to Mobitelea

Will stockbrokers’ change?: The only smudge so far has been the past performance of stockbrokers. It is sad that the lines outside Nation Center (of Nyaga Stockbroker clients) is as long as that any broker/banker I have seen this week. Stockbrokers have put out their best clothes, advertised and got new staff to woo investors for the 1 billion plus shillings ($15 million) commissions from the IPO – but what happens after? Will they revert to their dark old ways of insider trading, and secret share dealing? An ominous story from the Nation goes that one of the most interesting but unconfirmed anecdotes at the bourse is that Nyaga Securities managing director Patrick Gakiavi actually attended (as a director) the NSE meeting that decided to pump Kshs. 100 million into his operation. – and that joins the NSE urban legend archive like the one of the CEO who was able to cash out his significant stake on the last day of Uchumi share trading

Modernization to eliminate rogue brokers: The central deposit settlement corporation (CDSC) is seeking an SMS solution (mobile phone messaging) to alert investors on their account share trades (theirs/by rogue brokers) and also respond to client requests. (Deadline is April 9) The laws have already been amended to allow them to collect 30 shillings from each Safaricom applicant for postage and this will probably continue for any statements thereafter – as investors will be eased into the cheaper option of SMS (maybe at 5 or 10 shillings per message)

Beyond Safaricom: Hisanet Africa recommend that investors look at some other shares of interest amidst the IPO: these include NIC Bank, Kengen, Barclays (who are now expanding into Rwanda), Access Kenya, and East African Cables.