I have received two requests to mention here and I have done so because I have some requests of my own as well.
Tujuane
‘Tujuane’ (defn: a Swahili word meaning ‘let us know each other’) is an exclusive free online social network, which is open to 25 – 50 year old professionals and allows its members to connect, network and interact more effectively with like-minded individuals who share same professional, economic and social interests. Members get a free networking-oriented profile page and can send messages to other members. They can also use our browse function to find members related to their industry, interests, favourite NSE listed stocks, affiliations or professional certifications. Join here.
Africa Investor Awards
The 2006 Africa Investor Awards which recognise and reward excellence by business, government and multilateral organisations operating in Africa across a wide range of disciplines will be held at the Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi on November 9 and Kenyan companies are encouraged to enter one of the sixteen categories. (Entries close September 15)
My requests
Things am looking for;
– A stall/ exhibition area, well-lit, and preferably on the ground floor of nice building in the CBD that is available at a reasonable rent
– A boarding school for girls that is affordable (about Kshs. 20,000) for a year, preferably close to Nairobi.
Diversification
Business Post is a very nice bi-monthly magazine on investment and business in Kenya. I was not aware of if until their editor approached me to do an article in the June issue, and a second bankelele article appears in the August/September issue which should be published at the end of the month. (Unfortunately the magazine has no website,but their e-mail is info@businesspost.co.ke)
NSE vs. Real Estate
After learning about Business Post, I located several of their past magazines and one of my favourite articles was from their February 2006 issue which compared gains made on the stock exchange versus those from real estate. It answers an oft-asked/commented question on if one can get rich off the stock exchange and which I maintain is possible by playing for the long term and continuously re-investing.
The NSE provides a passive way to earn some money from savings and gives comfort to those of us not in a position to invest in real estate now, which is said to be the best investment vehicles.
Business Post compared investing 100,000 in certain shares in 1995, versus some real estate transactions at the same time and their value/return if shares or houses/land were sold in February 2006:
Shares
Company share price (1995)| Amount invested |Dividend income |Share sale income | Return
KQ 9.5 | 95,000 | 55,575 | 169,000 | 136.4%
Nation 24.5 | 245,000 | 819,969 | 7,650,000 | 3,357.1%
Barclays 81 | 810,000 | 1,257,557 | 3,839,616 | 529.3%
EABL 42.5 | 425,000 | 830,490 | 6,408,000 | 1,703.2%
KCB 29 | 290,000 | 164,663 | 793,313.5 | 230.3%
Real Estate
– Buru 4br house on 1/4 acre, Bought for 1.85m, earned rental income of 1.6 to 1.6m, sold for 3.0 – 5.0m yielding a return of 138% – 256%
– Runda 4br house on 1/4 acre bought for 8.5 to 10m, earned rental income of 5.3 to 5.9m, sold for 12 – 16m, yielding a return of 103% – 119%
– 1/2 acre vacant Runda plot bought for 1.5 to 2.5m and sold for 2.6 – 4m, yielding 60% – 73%
– 1,000 acres in Rift Valley bought for 63m earned an income of 54m and sold for 100m yielding 144%.
Insider Trading
A nice NY Times article on (merger related) insider trading of shares which point out that
– Many investors are troubled by what they now see as rampant insider trading, saying it fosters the perception that insiders can profit in the markets at the expense of outsiders.
– It is undeniable that brokerage firms, with their varied businesses all under one roof, remain particularly well positioned to capitalize on inside information. Not only do these firms advise buyers and sellers in mergers, giving them immense access, they also have proprietary trading desks that invest the firm’s money in stocks and other securities, money management units that invest for clients and trading desks that profit mightily by executing trades for hedge funds.
– Spotting abnormal trading is far simpler than bringing a successful insider-trading prosecution.
Several NSE companies have enjoyed surges without or before any material information being released.
Once again thanks for this very informatve blog. On your requests, I presume you intend to start an exhibition stall and have your daughter in a boarding school.
Banks, I believe you have alot of potential in business writting and running an exhibition stall makes me feel like you are losing hope when we need you most.
Jakarumba: Thanks, boarding school is for one of those African extended family support requests
Actualy what I want is a permanent stall (not a temporary expo one)for a business idea/project
Banks this is a great comparison for Real estate and Stocks, however you didnt put any timelines on the real estate, is it 1995 ?
I have a gut feeling that those are the good old days, for a while now we seem to have lots of Kenyans and foreigners confident enough to invest their money here.
Banks, I guess you arfrom the Western side of the republic? Anyway cheers for taking care of them.
I’ve registered in Tujuane. It has some faults:
1.All the drop down lists are not too limiting.
2. The last page of registration is confusing-is it asking for the one’s details or the persoon one wants to network with?
Hi Banks, I just love your blog to death. Well done on all and I mean ALL your articles. I’m just a little short of scribbling notes. Your blog is very informative.
Quick question on Tujuane…why are we forced to choose one gender to network with? Ama its a dating thingi? Please find out from the guys who asked you to mention it in your blog. Personally I’d like to network with male and female folk and not just in a particular profession or who have a particular preference of stock on the NSE.
registered with Tujuane. But I have found the profile lists too limiting. I have therefore de-registdred my profile. Some of the qns in there are leaning towards dating sites, which shouldn’t be the case if the idea to network is purely for business idea.
On the stall/office thingy: there are some chaps (almost a venture capital company) who are considering hiring space for business incubation in Nairobi with a provison of a full range of support services from legal to I-don’t-know-what-else.The problem is that this is not in the CBD. I could pass more info in you need it.
All the best in the school hunt. That’s life.
Try Gatanga girls secondary school near Thika Im not so sure about their current fees but its around the same hopefully……..
We appreciate the comments, you are helping us customize Tujuane to your needs.
Creating a customized solution for Nairobians requires your input and therefore – provide as much feedback as possible. If you have any more comments please post them here on Bankelele or email info@nairobist.com.
We will improve/make changes as you continue to send us your feedback.
Jakarumba:
>>>Please provide us with the list of items you want us to add to any of the lists. We add new list items every day.
>>>We just made this clear on the website:” DETAILS OF PEOPLE I WANT TO NETWORK WITH:” Is this clear enough?
Supuu:
>>Tujuane is all inclusive – there is the social aspect and the business aspect. We just added the ‘both’ option for the Gender you want to network with, therefore you options are no longer limited to networking/connecting with one gender.
Ig-know-rant:
“As a social network” we are not strictly business, we hope to connect Nairobi professionals both socially and professionally.
In the next couple months we will start organizing ‘social and business’ events in Nairobi. (Meet to discuss stocks, investments or get professional golf trainers to give beginner lessons in golf).
Once again we appreciate your comments and we need all you critiques to try the site and provide feedback.
Thank you,
Tujuane
Banks, sorry to have to use your blog to give Tujuane their/his/her feedback. Lakini, I think it would help, if we could at least have a link on the Tujuane website to email or leave comments.
Tena, if I go to My Network, I see people there with Age 6. I’m assuming the value there is actually their Working experience. That should be corrected as well.
Otherwise, not a bad idea at all.
ig-know-rant: Rather than deregistering yourself, why not give feedback and make the site what you’d like it to become.
Tujuane: Keep it up. Its a good start.
banks
good info all round again. few weeks ago you mentioned intentions to stop blogging. i hope you changed your mind
tujuane
thanks for the idea, i think its a good one.. and can be expanded to do mnay more things
could you please remove the mitis on gender, people i want to net work with, the stocks they like and the preferred profession. this is not practical
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5296330.stm
one step forward for idriss deby. 200 steps back for africa. business and the sanctity of contracts is one thing
african govts dont seem to grasp. an di cant tell u thepeople of chad will not benefit
banks what’s up with the African Market Roundup website! last time they updated was 08/24.this is insane! and we’re supposed to start trading real time, sounds like surreal time to me.
Tujuane, Sassy: I did not de-register myself from Tujuane, just my profile. I’m sending comments to Tujuane direct. Banks, thanks for providing this forum. Thanks.
@ig-know-rant -sassy has nothing to do with tujuane and i havent made any comment regarding the same……..
Sassy: Sorry, was addressing supuu.My bad.
Btw, has anyone checked out or used http://www.eight.co.ke for their (15)minute(s) by (15)minute(s) updates on shares prices from the trading floor?? How accurate are they?? Could come in handy once electronic trading commences.
you idea is great .. definitely we will join tujuane..
Just a quick question. Once the nse goes electronic, shall we, the clients of stock brokerage firms change the way we place our orders i.e shall we still have to visit the brokers to place orders or does the system incoporate a module for users to place/cancel their orders online?
Banks: Much respect, but a little suggestion — perhaps you could split your multi-topic posts by grouping like ideas? This one, for example, had two potentially strong threads (idea exchange/networking and real estate vs stocks/insider trading). When Jakarumba and Ken posted, it seemed both might co-exist. I kept coming back to see how it was going, but the real estate thread (which I thought more interesting) was buried in the Tujuane avalanche!
Ooh Bankelele News Network again. I am so gonna buy the business post.
Just walk around and you will get a stall.View park towers?
Ken: They were both 1995 to 2006
Jakarumba; Thanks for trying out Tujuane and commenting
Supuu: Thanks too
Ig-know-rant: I remember the VC chaps in the Nation awhile back, will look them up, remind me of the name please?
sassy: thanks will check out
Tujuane: heed your subscribers
gathinga: still going on with teh blogs through some ups & some downs
Anonymous: Am suprised Chad took this long to gutuka
Anonymous: updated now
Ig-know-rant: will check out eight later
warogiwawili: not my project, but a good thing stating
Anonymous: No idea, not much info from NSE yet, just that it will happen after Sept
propaganda: once new blogger in place, wiill re-do everything with labels
Shiroh: on the streets today, thanks
Banks,
I have been a keen reader of your weblog and the thought of life without Bankelele is hard to bear.
By the way, one of the two main publishing houses is romoured to be staring a Business Daily or Weekly. I strongly believe that you may be the editor that they dont have. With a portfolio as rich and deep as Bankelele, that job should be yours for taking. Give it a shot!
If you would be interested, I can send out feelers to pinpoint who is involved. I strongly feel that your kind of writing is what Nairobi needs.
Good luck.
Gachuhi: Nation Media Group, which is behind the proposed business daily, already has much of it’s team in place (They just raided The Standard Group this week for talent). That said, dead-tree journalism would kill the best thing about Bankelele — interactivity.
Bankelele: Bought the current Business Post on impulse yesterday. The story on supply chain changes at EABL is brilliant. Makes me just want to call my stockbroker and cry “Accumulate!”
Banks: unless you want to sell clad or mobiles, I’m thinking you need more than just a stall, coz that’s the impression created.
Registered with Tujuane, not too much of a hassle, but guess will have to wait to see if it pans out.
Check out the Genious business stalls in viewpark towers going for 9k p/m.Shared office amenities and space to build your idea.
Call these guys to check availability http://www.softlaw.co.ke/content/index.htm
Banks, check out http://www.bridgeworks.ch. They have local reps.
You know what I like about your blog? It is so informative and full of new and interesting ideas. I get to learn so many things everyday. Keep it up!
http://www.chicagori.com