Category Archives: Safaricom IPO

SMS Solutions

CDSC: The Central Depository System Corporation (CDSC) has now rolled out their SMS alert service to inform investors of trades within their accounts, and hopefully alert investors of unauthorized trades by rogue brokers

Investors can check their CDSC (amazingly, they still have no website as yet) balances by registering through either (i) in person at 10th floor Nation Center or (ii) sending an SMS formatted “REG*CDS A/C No.*ID No.” to 2372 – to receive an alias and Pin No.

Investors can then use the service to access (i) portfolio balance, (ii) view a mini statement (of last 5 trades) (iii) receive alerts of each trade [by sending an “alerts on” message to 2372] or (iv) change PIN. (each CDSC SMS costs 10 shillings – ~$0.15) [more from helpdesk@cdsckenya]

NCWSC: The Nairobi City Water & Sewerage Company have followed in the footsteps of the KPLC to introduce an SMS facility where customers can check their water bills by phone SMS. Simply send a message with account number to the number 5571, and receipt of a balance message costs 15 shillings. While The company is not as aggressive in cutting off subscribers with arrears as KPLC, their bills through the regular mail are rare and infrequenet, and so SMS is a good way to know your balance and due date.

For electricity bills from KPLC, queries cost 10 shillings by SMS, but are free by e-mail.

Mobile XL: report on a value addition SMS and chat application.

A couple of Banks offer SMS banking facilities, but the value addition is questionable given the cost [30/= per query]. Online banking for corporations seems a more viable option

And finally, most dear to every investor now is the use of SMS to trace Safaricom IPO refunds and allocation:
– For IPO allocation; message is “CDS.no#ID.no#A” to 4009
– For refund cheque location; message is “CDS.no#ID.no#R” to 4009
each SMS costs 15/=
– if no message, chances are your (rogue) broker did not buy shares for you

Safaricom 7s

Safaricom IPO Day 24: Commentary – Strong market rebound. Someone is buying everything up below 7.00. We have based out. Deals 3,070 Turnover 305.67 million [$4.63 m] Average 6.94 High 7.00 Low 6.80 Last7.00 Volume 44 million shares Commentary and data from Rich.co.ke – NSE data vendor [with Free real time prices between 0930 -1500]

End of day : 64.65 million Shares, closing at 6.95 (up 2.2%)

Celtel Kenya gets a new CEO (7th?) [Rene Meza from Paraguay] as Celtel wins an award for best telecoms operator in Africa at the 2008 Business in Africa Awards held in London.

Rift Valley Railways gets two new shareholders [Prime Fuels and Mirambo Holdings]. Meanwhile both Kenya and Uganda governments are getting impatient and workers went on strike [they have now just got their June salaries]

The Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat is seeking – director general, directors [social & political pillars, enablers & macro, economic pillar, and Strategy, marketing, empowerment and communication] chief officer [monitoring and evaluation] officer [project finance] project accountant, executive secretary. apply to psplanning@planning.go.ke by 31/7

The Trouble with Celtel

Are free calls enough?

[I am not a customer, but I have probably bought and discarded three of their SIM cards to coincide with some ongoing promotions. Too many people I call are on Safaricom, and until number portability comes along, (carrying my number to another network) I am stuck with Safaricom.]

Beside number portability, there are other things they need to sort out; Celtel has been losing customers (23% down from a year ago), executive staff (compared to the ‘stable’ team at Safaricom and direction. The change of brand from Kencel to celtel to Zain only benefits paint and marketing companies (but there’s already a ‘Z’ brand in Tanzania and a couple of other African countries)

My biggest peeve with them is there are too many products; these are never promoted long enough to mature or register with subscribers and potential customers.

This week
– For internet/data users – they have Uhurunet – unlimited internet service, whose equipment is a USB modem costing 6,000 shillings [$95] and 3,000 [$48] per month for unlimited internet which is not bad [and this compares well against Safaricom]

– For callers: Earlier this week they launched a six-month tariff with free airtime for people who purchase cheap phones (targeted at rural subscribers). And now from the skunkworks group we learn that they have another new tariff with Free calls from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day (top up with 100 shillings to take advantage) – will this be the one that gives them an edge over Safaricom? That’s the problem with Celtel – great products, big marketing budget, but jumbled messages that confuse subscribers. In the last year they have advertised their lowest rate at 6 shillings (Mambo 6), 4 shillings (to 3 preferred numbers) and now 3/= ($0.05)per minute. That is three times cheaper than Safaricom, but who has the masses and who has the right message?

Other tales

– Opportunity: Nominate a worthy Kenyan to the Generation Kenya program

– From Uganda and GTV comes pre-paid premium TV – subscribers can pay for their GTV pay TV packages using scratch cards

Experian Kenya: joining the Kenyan credit reference pool is Experian in partnership with Quest Holdings.

– Day 19 of the Safaricom IPO has 4,121 deals, worth 342 million ($5.42 million) Closing 7.20 High 7.40 Low 7.00 Last 7.20 and volume of 47.5 million shares. It’s well supported and Buyers must be sniffing out a conclusion to the de-leveraging process. Commentary and data from Rich.co.ke – NSE data vendor [with Free real time prices between 0930 -1500]

Grand Debate

[EDIT – at the end of the session, members of parliament passed a motion of censure against the Minister for Finance – Amos Kimunya, MP for Kipipiri]

Live on TV – all stations is the debate to censure Finance Minister Amos Kimunya for his role in the controversial sale of the Grand Regency Hotel.

Before a rather hostile opposition side, He’s just given a statement where he:

– Outlined his long history as an accountant and a crusader for reforms, revenue gains and tax savings for the Kenyan people numerous times such as with De La Rue, pending contractor bills, Safaricom, Telkom Kenya
– On Safaricom – Mobietelea was there long before he was in government or parliament
– On Alcazar – the reputed owner of 11% in Safaricom – he says after Vodafone (K) and the Kenya government, no one else owns more than 1% of the company (after the IPO)
– On the Grand Regency Hotel: it was sold for $45 million {~ billion shillings} in May 2008
– The Central Bank made the sale and was not under duress.
– The ministry of lands, attorney generals office, prime ministers’ office have all received various reports
– More info forthcoming tomorrow

Safaricom IPO: 
Day 18 – Deals 5,266 Turnover 439, million ($6.86) million Ave 7.29 Closing 7.25 High 7.50 Low 7.20 Last 7.30 Volume 60.3 million shares – Market still absorbing supply but its very well supported at these levels. The move higher depends on how much more de-leveraging has to be done.

Day 17 – Deals 4,671 Turnover 302 million ($4.7 million) 7.35 High 7.50 Low 7.25 Last volume of 41 million shares – orderly and some sellers came off 7.50 to sell lower. Strong demand at 7.25. Remains constructive. 6.65-8.15 range.
commentary and data courtesy of Rich.co.ke – N.S.E Data Vendor

Uh Oh

Here we go again The Indian Ocean Newsletter reports

Just a few months after the collapse of the Nyaga Stock Broker , a large company heavily indebted to its clients, another stockbroker on the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) is in turn facing financial problems

Did the unintended collaboration of Coldtusker / Business Daily unearth the firm? This comes after several recent articles in the Business Daily on the renewal of broker licenses by the Capital Markets Authority.

Plastic cheaper: KCB lowering their credit cards fees. Annual fees for the KCB card will now be was 3,000 (~$47) from 4,000, while their Visa Gold will now be 4,000 (~63) from 6,000. Card penetration remain lows, I believe Barclays are the biggest company with 81,024 cards in 2007 (double 41,019 in 2006)

Entry-level opportunities (and expiry dates)
most from the daily papers last week
– Graduate trainees at the East African Portland Cement company (15/7)
– Management trainees at Unilever Kenya (7/7)
– Management trainees at Telkom Kenya (7/7)
– Young processionals program at the World Bank (15/7)

Safariom Day 16: Deals 3,939 Turnover 270.8 million shillings [$4.23 million] Avgerage 7.44 Closing 7.40 [+ 2.07%] High 7.55 Low 7.30 Last 7.45 Volume 36.4 million shares. Commentary: A constructive session. Bouts of indigestion are to be expected but those who had to flip [over leverage] have done so by now, given the volumes we have witnessed since the IPO. [Commentary and data provided by Rich.co.ke – Nairobi Stock Exchange Authorized Data Vendor]