Kutwa Tuesday – June 26

Uchumi revealed: Shedding some light on the Uchumi bond proposal, the receiver manager has stated that the problems that shut down Uchumi had more to do with management style than the market conditions. The newspaper says that the 650 million to be raised, 280 million will go to pay suppliers & creditors, 23 million interest on (bank) loans, 52m to pay terminal benefits of staff, 200m working capital as the company plans to open 3 new branches in Mombasa, Nairobi, and Kisumu.

The article adds that all suppliers have been paid for deliveries made in the last 12 months i.e. the company is profitable. The company had sales of Kshs. 1.3 billion in the first quarter of the year and had 2.8 million shoppers visit their stores. Sarit is their best store with April revenue of 90 million followed by Ngong Rd hyper with 68m (last was Eldoret with 8m) from an offline story in the financial standard.

Note: even if they re-list, won’t they be in the same boat as NBK and be unable to pay dividends for several years?

Rights Issue: Olympia’s rights issue was formally announced today with an offer for shareholders to buy 3 shares for each held.

Newspapers: New newspaper from the KISS team – called the Nairobi Star and billing itself as Kenya’s first full-color daily newspaper launches next week
– But what happened to the Kenya Times website frozen on June 8?

Trade not aid: According to an Oxfam report subsidies are responsible for poverty among African cotton farmers.

Political worm: Raila Odinga gets unfairly blamed for a lot of things, but he is not responsible for a malicious computer virus bearing his name that has caused IT admin’s some headaches this month

uh oh: Why is Obama’s campaign getting stuck?

uh oh 2: Sad to read that former track darling Marion Jones is
almost broke. Even though she wasn’t a big spender like Tyson or Jackson, legal bills fending off drug allegations have taken their toll on her finances.

Uh oh 3 & 4 : Zimbabwe to do a takeover of foreign businesses as Uganda parliamentarians have given Barclays, Sheraton, Kakira Sugar, and Uganda Telecom one year to float part of their share on the Uganda stock exchange.

War what is it good for? Is there a difference between Somalia, Darfur and Palestine?

6 thoughts on “Kutwa Tuesday – June 26

  1. Mimmz

    So that’s what’s up in Uchumi? I think it’s satisfactory but I need more. Concur?

    Obama is hurting for speaking like a smart person. As in we as the world masses seriosuly don’t appreciate smartness, facts and figures? Anyone else worry about that?

    Trade not Aid… I owe my instructor a 48 page paper on that topic. Thanks for an additional source to reference.

  2. Githush

    On Obama: he’s experiencing the growing pains of a campaign. He and his team have been going through a trough in the election cycle, there has been some bad news: corrupt associates, staff playing dirty etc..
    and some lucklustre performances in the debates (Clinton came out of both as the more polished, and accomplished of the leading lights).

    ON the bright side this is a really long campaign season and its best if his team experiences pains now (learns how to handle the media and effectively respond to the Clinton machine) than having to recover after losing Iowa or New Hampshire.

  3. alexcia

    Thanks Banks

    On Trade not Aid
    Is there any (mutually exclusive) relationship between the two?

    What makes it even more silly is that Aid/grant are no longer developmental but for the so called “millenium goals” which are about charity/hardship/poverty

  4. chumviKiasi

    Obama was in trouble as soon as people started realizing that all that charisma hides a severe lack of experience. The same experience that tells you to watch what you say and how you say it. In this culture of sound bites and innuendo, getting long-winded will kill you. It is seeming more and more that he got in this race because he was popular. When you get past that, what else is there? Where is his record? That is what it will come down to as this runs toward the finish line. He has but 6 to 7 months to clean things up (democratic primaries). If he (or the other candidates) makes a poor showing in either the Iowa or NH primaries, Feb 05, he or she can start campaigning for the VP slot. I think he should focus on that now, this is looking bad already with his attacks on faith. That is a touchy topic around here and one has to be diplomatic about what one says about one’s religion or religion in general-ask an atheist :).

  5. Dweep

    Alexcia,
    Economic relationships are always difficult to establish. But I’d venture to say yes, since foreign aid tends to distract attention from the real problem, by allowing the G8 to massage its conscience. As Becker said:
    The “generous” gifts from wealthy countries–pluming themselves on their greater (apparent) generosity than the United States–enable those countries to hide, perhaps even from themselves, the extent to which their tariff policies immiserate poor countries

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