Category Archives: Stanbic

Hedge Funds to Africa

Excerpts from a China news report: Some hedge funds are turning to resource-rich sub-Saharan Africa for investment, a fact reflecting an upward trend in some of the region’s economies and the growth of hedge funds and their search for new frontiers, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Citigroup is now trading securities from countries such as Kenya, Botswana, Tanzania, Uganda and Ghana for its clients. Within a few years, it has gone from trading in only two countries in sub-Saharan Africa to 12.

Banks wanted

Standard Bank (aka Stanbic) is seeking mid-size retail banks in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Angola, in addition to investing heavily in its own operations in Kenya to grow them at 25 percent a year,

Stanbic is Kenya’s 12th largest bank and its assets grew by 36% in the half-year.

Great image from airliners.net

Drink Beer

While the debate in Kenya is on whether to legalize traditional alcohol, one in Iran is much more potent

Split strategy
Standard Bank of South Africa (Stanbic) which has expressed interest in acquiring a significant stake in the National Bank of Kenya has at the same time entered a partnership with Postbank another giant stumbling bank. It is difficult to picture a Stanbic corporate customer visiting a Postbank lobby.

Pay-per-read
As the New York Times has gone ahead and made the op-ed columns and some daily articles subscriber only, the East African Standard has done the same, making Pulse, the Financial Standard, and other daily magazines as digital editions available to subscribers only. Content is displayed in the exact format as the print version, with searchable text, at a cost of $216 for year – much more than the equivalent of buying the Standard every day for a year ($173)

The Daily Nation also offers digital versions of their paper via NewsStand featuring the exact soft copy and advertisements at about $234 a year. Both the Standard and Nation are offered through NewsStand alongside other papers like the New York Times (8 weeks for $20), USA Today (13 weeks for $32) and the Harvard Business Review ($118).

Uchumi Countdown
Friday is the last day to participate in the Uchumi right issue, which is expected to be quite successful after a slow start.

Patriotic Moment
The Government intends to come up with a 2 – 4 word catchphrase to be featured in an about to be launched international television campaign to market Kenya. It can be in English or Kiswahili, and should sum up what it is that makes it great to be Kenyan. You can e-mail suggested phrases here.

WB Quiz
Here’s another project information document from the World Bank, this time on the education sector. The quiz is to decipher the following acronyms: ABE ACU ASAL CIDA DEB DFID EMIS ERS ERSSC FPE FPESP IDA INSET JFA JRM KESI KESSP LRC LSPMDG M&E MOEST MOF MPER MTEF NER NFE NFEC NFS NSIMP ODL PCR PID PRGF PTTC SACMEQ SAGA SbTD SIDA SIG SPRED SWAP TIVET TLWHA TMU TTC and UPE.

Stanbic confirm their interest in NBK

“We’re small in Kenya and would like to play a much bigger role,” says Kevin Wingfield, director of acquisitions at Stanbic, Standard Bank’s Africa business. “NBK is one that may meet those requirements. If the shareholders were interested in selling, we would look at it,”

Story was first reported by Jaindi Kisero, editor of the East African.

Banking News

Faster cheque clearing: Omingo Magara, a Kenyan MP, and an institution known as Accountability International are lobbying to expedite the clearing of cheques at Kenyan Banks from the current four (working) days to 24 hours in an initiative known as “T+1”

Who wants to be a billionaire? Stanbic (Standard Bank of South Africa) and Equity Bank have both raised their share capital recently. Stanbic had a $10 million capital injection while Equity did theirs by converting 725 million in deposits into shares. Stanbic’s reasons were disclosed fully in South Africa as they intend to diversify into new areas; however the Equity one is a bit strange / troubling for its new shareholders. The mode of conversion is similar to what Daima is attempting – but what will happen if any of Equity’s 2,216 depositors wants to dispose of their shares?. The shares are expected to be floated on the Nairobi Stock Exchange by June 2005.

Utility Service (Water Bills):  Kenyans can now pay their bills at branches of Co-operative Bank – just take your water bill and the cash payment, or you can have the amount automatically deducted from your Co-op account. However with their long lines in the banking halls, and especially at their ATM’s, Co-op seems to be biting off more than they can chew. They may need to review their account maintenance requirements to ensure better service to the customers they desire.

Hillcrest Schools to be sold: Hillcrest School and Hillcrest Secondary School will be sold to settle a Kshs. 620 million loan to Barclays Bank according to the Nation (Feb 1). The Receiver Manager, DCDM firm, will sell the schools as a going concern and the new owner will have to grapple with high costs at the schools, including a monthly salary bill of Kshs 16 million at one school.