Safaricom IPO: The calendar is on for the sale of 25% of Safaricom shares to the public and the government of Kenya (who are yielding part of their 60% ownership) have advertised for a lead transaction advisor, lead sponsoring broker, (4) co-sponsoring brokers, legal advisor, reporting accountant, PR firm, advertising consultant, receiving bank, and a share registrar for the IPO. Details at investmentsecretary@treasury.co.ke D/L is 16 July. There have been complaints about firms offering such work for free to gain prestige
Safaricom call center. The company is also seeking to outsource customer service for prepaid subscribers to an external firm (Current traffic ranges from 10,000 – 20,000 calls per day). Details from dngobia@safaricom.co.ke and D/L is 11/7
other happenings
Pipeline finance: The Kenya Pipeline Company seeking financing for the Nairobi-Mombasa and Nairobi-Western Kenya (Nakuru, Kisumu, Eldoret) segments amounting to Kshs. 7.5 billion ($107) million over the next 2 years. D/L is 31/7
Housing: The National Housing Corporation offering 890 3-bedroom flats in Langata phase II ranging from 3.9 to 4.1 million each ($55,000 – $58,000). The corporation is also selling 38 maisonettes in Kiambu phase ii at between 3.2 and 3.4 million shillings.
Barclays
– Good : The bank has hired external debt collection agents – outsourcing a time consuming tedious function.
– Not good : The only thing worse then taking a personal loan to buy shares is using a credit card to buy shares. An investor is already in the hole, and needs his shares return 30% a year, just to break even. Using a debit card may be ok though, but factor in the card fees.
Education
– New Aga Khan University campus to be set up in Nairobi
– Moi University to soon offer a masters degree in banking & finance
Media
– Desperate Housewives start next month on KTN. Hope they don’t butcher the show like they did with the Soprano’s (heavily edited, shown at 11 PM on Sunday night and often out of sequence)
– The Naiorbi Nairobi Star (new daily newspaper from KISS FM team ) hit the streets today with a lot of fanfare, but does it have legs?
Naiorbi Star… U meant Nairobi Star?
SafCon has LOUSY customer service… if Celtel cuts their prices even for in-network calling… they can steal lots of customers from SafCon…
BTW, the Mambo6 plan from Celtel… calling SafCon cuts off after 5mins thus causing subscribers an extra 2.50 to connect!!!
Nairobi Star does have legs – at traffic lights and in fish net stockings. It was not sexy, it was not tacky, it was plain shady!
The Nairobi Star is the biggest joke to hit the Kenyan Streets yet!!!!
We should have guessed from their street launch jana.
I a m yet to grab a copy of Nairobi star (will do so in an hours time).
Going by how its launching has been, am yet to know the target market.
Those chics were pulling down their skirts more than they waved the placards. I wonder which one they were there for!!
And that idiot Mutahi Kagwe attended their launch? And the way he is always going on about Standard and their politics. I guess he wanted something that wasn’t criticising the GoK. Its not necessary for us to copy the West in everything they do…
BBK seem to be looking non-performing loans like nobody business. Lakini, they are very seriuos about regaining the initiative from Equity.
the star is a refreshing change from the other papers. the use of those chics may not have bin all that funny but the brains behind it deserve a big thumbs up for refreshing our mornings, we need a break from the kawa of the others .
by the way was it neccesary for PQ to flaunt his mama, caro, on it….????!!! ama its kittony…lol
I called Safcom CS at 2 am and I couldn’t get through!
I hope Telkom wireless gives them a run for their money. They need to style up.
coldtusker: correctamundo on Nairobi star.
– Celtel have really shaken Safaricom and made them cut call prices and fees (such as for sim replacemnts and tariff changes) – but are they profitable? and tehri marketing still pales next to safaricom
nelie: not enticing, as those mamas looked harsh & rough behind the shades.
kd: give them a chance to improve (and match their hype)
Jakarumba: got a copy today and should get the next few days till Sato to check for progress
– BTW those girls did not look happy to be on the road for two cold mornings
MainaT: Uh oh. He’s a politician. KISS have rubbed teh government a few times – and more than most media houses (except maybe the Standard)
Ssembonge: (always been prepaid) & I didn’t realise how bad CS was till i read M’s columns on ‘safaricon’. I always expected a company to pamper their corporate customers – like prestige banking, but I gues the numbers overwhelmn them
Credit card payment method only makes sence for kenyans abroad. They can use a debit card just like a credit card. Boom instance free money transfer.
Credit card are expensive even for those abroad. Because of merchant fees, you expect to pay between 4-5% for your card to be cleared in Kenya. Some cards especially in US have a Max on how much you can spend per day. Tranditional money trasfer beats them all.
Small companies like http://www.poapay.com will credit your broker account the next day for free with fees as low as $2. http://www.postapay.com is also offering direct credit to banks in Kenya, and many others. Even moneygram fees are very competitive though not deposit to banks.
Unless you want to borrow from your credit card, it would be irrational to use debit card in Kenya. Worse, how secure will they be? Kenya has no laws against check fraud leave alone electronic payment theft.
//Kenya has no laws against check fraud leave alone electronic payment theft.//
fraud is fraud regardless of the means
I guess we have a proper tabloid in Kenya now ! The Nairobi star might have legs for now since print media is still the best way of getting to know what is happening in Kenya and around the world. Once we get broadband then expect a lot of the papers to lose readership thus advertising revenue, as internet savvy kenyans will turn to the internet for their news. What we are seeing in Kenya are new ways of serving particular niche readership, and maybe that is the way nairobi star will go. I hope they do not try to compete with the well entrenched papers, coz they will take a long time to break even and recoup initial investment.me thinks Quarcoo or whoever the mdosi at Kiss is, might be prepapring his media firm to go public in the near future, maybe TV station is next?
nairobi star resembles those tacky ugandan tabloids sold near simmers.a definate ‘no-buy’
and as for celtel,why dont they seem to make any money?
I predict a boom in business processing and outsourcing services once ththe damn cable is in place. Any competition for Kencall?
Brokers have been known to screw clients by doing everything from “misplacing” orders to short selling shares. Why wud i trust them with my credit card?
great idea for wanainchi in the diasporas because interest rates are bearable unless your credit sucks but like someone said, there are no laws in place to protect consumers from electronic fraud so you’d be a moron to use this service!
Pipeline/Petroleum issues: Since Shell have now decided to go back to Western Kenya…think they will be able to recoup the lost market share?
too many ignorant people making comments here.There was nothing tabloid about nairobi star,people just assumed because of kiss’ radical advertising.Its a decent paper with real stories.No porn associated with it.The Kiss MD has not gotten into anything that has failed he puts a lot of research before launching.This paper is a hit and serves a 4 million population that has a unique lifestyle. For sure its a hit
Anonymous:
Please refrain from calling us ignorant. if you did not realize the beauty of blogging,it is that you get diverse opinions on one subject in a way that you could not get it in any newspaper, where it is often a biased opinion of one journalist. Do not get me wrong but if u r a Nairobi star journalist, then you better read what the bloggers are saying, and package it into improving your newspaper. I have always wondered why journalists cannot take criticism, yet they are always ready to hand it out at the slightest provocation.
My Apologies Mashattall for using the word ignorant.Have you read the paper?Please point out to me 1 article in the last one week since the launch that is tabloid in nature.Even i expected a tabloid but i have been buying the paper and it has decent true stories.Even when they printed a falsehood about ruto they retracted and apologized.I just thought too many people passed judgement on the paper without reading it.Im no journalist just your average kenyan
Talk pure Ignorance. Nairobi is a paper that is full of western entertainment, nothing educational about it. I trully pitty the young generation who are the high consumers and are exposed to this kind of ignorance every other day.
Well, lets just say the Tabloid nature of a paper is judged by the way it does its headlines, the material it considers news and basically the length of content.
Nairobi star is tabloid by all nature, but there is nothing wrong about tabloid, my only problem is that it seems to have yet to make a decision on what it wants when the Mara story did not sell, it simply got into politics, for instance the Ruto story was known in political whispers, but no mainstream paper can go on print with such a story only a tabloid….The question should be does Kenya have a market for Tabloid? i think it does but Nairobi Star must stay clear on that issue.
It is a tabloid with great reporters who are not tabloid in nature and that is what makes it a confused write up.
i like bloggers they give guys the truth and if i was a Nairobi Starrian i would take bloggers serious..check for example http://www.abunuwasi.com, all sample comments positive and negative
Nairobi star is such a suck to morals, just by the first appearance during the launch.
But, the articles are no such sickness. They are well blend for the target audience who are the youth. The slot that minds not the effect to their personness the westernised images have on their lives.