Category Archives: Safaricom

Kutwa Tuesday: July 8 Briefs

away from the Grand Regency

Banking
– CFC/Stanbic merger/takeover formalized: As at June 1, the combined banking groups had assets of 78.3 billion shillings [$1.26 billion], deposits of 55 billion [$888 m] and loans of 38.9 billion [$627m]
– EABS Bank is now Ecobank Kenya
– Business Cubs: Bank of Africa will launch a small business Club for clients.
– Going international: building on the success of Safaricom’s M-Pesa, Vodafone will do money transfer between UK and Kenya challenging western union on phone transfers to India, Turkey, Egypt and South Africa (from Balancing Act Africa)

Investments
– Everyone lovers Safaricom; with 90% of the shares volumes since listing, the company has been added to the AIG index, NSE 20 and NASI indexes from July 1
– One month after Safaricom allocations, and despite paying an extra fee (30/= for a CDS statement) and making several trades, no new CDS statement has come in the mail

Media
– KTN joins the morning show club with Sunrise Live – coming a few months after Citizen TV and Nation (NTV) with their ‘breakfast shows’
– There’s a new relaunched Standard newspaper out today with new layout – but their byline For Fairness, Justice, and Prosperity is straight out of Superman

Energy
– Sweden/China joint oil search: Lundin Kenya has bought a share of the field assigned to China [Block 9, Kenya].

Travel
– Having moved to cut out travel agents, Kenya Airways will next offer hotel and car booking online at their website
– Rift Valley Railways (RVR) will raise freight charges up 14.5% and will charge a fuel surcharge based on average diesel cost and US$ exchange rate from 1st august

Other
– Kenya has no summer or winter, but the high court has a summer vacation from 1st to 8th August

Questions from the blogs
– A recap of the Kenya Re AGM
– Has tourism in the Mara recovered in 2008?
– Does EDGE or 3G after all?

Opportunities

Digital: KDN and the ICT Kenya Digital Village are offering free connectivity for digital villages and schools: the program targets rural cyber cafes and schools – who are willing to pay a set- up fee, and share some revenue earned with KDN

Investments
– The Barclays Bond closes tomorrow (9/7)
– KCB rights close on 18/7 – so far only NBK has offered loans for KCB rights (up to 90% finance)

Jobs
– EABL: logistics manager, governance improvement manager, group audit & risk manager, application support analyst, procurement managers (2). Apply to hr.recruitment@eabl.com
– The electoral commission of Kenya: registrar of political parties, internal audit manager, finance officer. D/L is 23/7 by snail mail
– Captains of B1900 C and D at executive turbine. Apply through info@xturbine.co.ke
– Film commission of Kenya: head of programmes, hear of HR & administration, head of finance, Programmes manager, marketing assistant, legal assistant, ICT assistant, executive secretary. Apply to ceo@filmingkenya.com by 18/7
– Keroche: distributors, area sales representatives. Apply to director.marketing@keroche.com by 11/7
– National Oil Corp of Kenya: risk analysts, internal audit assistant, procurement analysts, supply analyst
– Executive director of the privatization commission which became operational in January 2008. Apply (through deloitte) to esd@deloitte.co.ke (22/7)
– Resources manager at the Rockefeller foundation. Apply (though KPMG) to esd@kpmg.co.ke by 11/7

and
Marie Stopes: deputy director of male circumcision project (africa) [location: zambia} and male circumcision partnership deputy project manager [location: zimbabwe] d/l is 19/7

Scholar/internships
– Rhodes Scholarships (2) for Kenyans. D/L is 31/8
– World Bank young professionals program. D/L is 15/7

Safaricom @ NSE Day 7

Deals 10,506
Turnover Kshs. 950.9 million [$14.86 million]
Average price 7.83
Closing 7.80 (-1.27%)
High 8.05
Low 7.70
Last 7.80
Volume 122 million shares

Commentary:
Slightly more defensive session ahead of 8.00 which is now the pivot. We will cross 8.00, its a question of time. Sellers will be exhausted given the turnover
– This morning: Excluding today, total share volume has been 1.2 billion shares which is 12% of the total shares sold. Shares are moving quickly from loose hands into those of medium term Investors. 8 and around is currently the clearing price for the flippers. Crossing 8 will be bullish
– Courtesy of Rich.Co.Ke [NSE data vendor]

Equity goes Giga

The story of the day and probably going to be the deal of the year (trumping CFC/Stanbic merger – which while being 6X larger, is not really foreign direct investment – FDI into Kenya) is that Equity Bank is selling a 25% stake to Helios Investors – (official). The deal to sell 90.5m new at shares 122 shares ($1.80) will bring in about 11 billion ($160 million) in new capital to the Bank.

When last months’ post discussed local banks needing
to raise capital a deal of this size was not in the picture. With the new capital Equity will be able to do business up to 150 billion shillings (about
where Barclays is today) – but that growth cannot be organic, so you can look to Equity to buy up a half dozen smaller banks.

Other shareholders must approve the deal in which their stake will be reduced. Fortunately for top managers they will retain their stake while falling under the 5% CBK limit for managers.

Others

– Diamond Trust opens a Branch in Malindi: Way to go after those Italian
accounts
– NIC Bank to buy a stockbrokerage firm.
– Safaricom data costs up: Bamba net a USB modem service was introduced in August 2007 at a cost 6,000 shillings to connect and 2,000 ($28) per month for unlimited net usage up to 700MB then 10 per MB thereafter. Now a new one costs 12,500 and 12.6 per MB after 8,000 shillings worth of free internet.

Opportunities

Joint Voluntary Agency – Financial Comptroller Position: The Joint Voluntary Agency (JVA) operates a US refugee resettlement program in
eastern and southern Africa through a Cooperative Agreement with the Department. It is seeking a Financial Comptroller position (chief accounting officer for JVA Kenya)
Requirements: Professional Certification in Accounting such as CPA, ACCA or equivalent, Bachelor’s degree in commerce or business administration with
specialization in accounting, Four or more years work experience in the NGO sector at management level with supervisory duties, among others. Interested and qualified applicants should submit a cover letter and a résumé by November 20, 2007 to the
Human Resources Manager – hr@jvakenya.org
advertise your job postings here- but preferably only for companies that enable online or e-mail applications

Also
– Capital Markets Authority: Chief executive, Manager legal affairs, National Bank of Kenya – deputy managing director. apply through Hawkins
associates by 27/11
– Nairobi Stock Exchange; head of legal & compliance. apply through Deloitte

Safaricom IPO here

‘Reliable sources’ indicate that the Safaricom IPO will open on December 3 and close on December 14. With the elections scheduled to be after mid-December, this will allow inventors to sort out their business before they sit down and vote. Hat Tip to AKS

The Broadband Gap

Earlier this month I received (though the mail) a DVD pack of all the talks from the organizers of TED Global. This is the first time I have seen any TED videos – ever!

While they have been online all this time, it’s not easy to watch any videos online because of the slow speeds – a 3 minute video can take ¼ hour to download, and they you have to rewind it to watch .

Also as more and more local video content and jazzed up websites, go up online, it is unfortunately still not possible to for many intended viewers to access the content watch. Or even bother to try until speeds are fast enough.

I’ll save the links and wait till I find a place that has very goods speeds. Some have impressive free speeds but can’t concentrate and watch there, besides have to lug around a heavy laptop to enjoy them

More Connectivity

Great news that Safaricom are going to roll out video on phones, broadband speeds and a host of other goodies soon. They paid about ½ of what they did for their mobile phone license less than 10 years ago for a 3G license. Maybe I can see some TED video’s from my phones.

Strathmore University have rolled out a campus wide Wi Fi network at the Madaraka campus to enable students with laptops to access the internet from all over the campus. And next students will be able to access the network from their homes via the Kenya Data Networks (KDN)’s infrastructure.