Unilever Bails

Redux: Things I missed on Kutwa Tuesday

Business Daily: My favorite newspaper is cutting back on online content to charge subscribers $ 132 per year?

Unilever (UK) have applied to buy the under-valued shares from minority shareholders – and if they succeed they will de-list from the NSE. They are offering to buy shares at 62 shillings ($0.95) when they had previously traded at 45/=. Unilever owns 88.23% of the Kenyan subsidiary and need less than 2% to reach their target of 90% and are already within reach [shares from the NSSF or Jubilee and KCB pensions’ will tip them over]

Other exchange changeovers’ have taken places [Serena and CFC] but they companies have continued to trade at the NSE. The NSE / CMA are loath to lose companies, and with (now) 6 suspended companies, this will be interesting. Both Carbacid and BOC were knee-capped by the CMA and their shareholders missed out on the NSE bull run over the last three years [both shares have been suspended since December 2005!]

Streak over briefly: Safaricom has dominated the market since the day it was listed, but yesterday was the first day that another company’s’ shares were traded more than Safaricom since June 9th [KCB had 45.7 million rights traded at ~Kshs. 5 as the Government’s 51 million rights which it forfeited were snapped up by other investors]

Results of the Housing Finance rights issue were released showing that it was fully subscribed [raising Kshs. 2.37 billion], though not wildly over-subscribed (3%?). Either the offer, was not enticing, or people have gotten smart enough not to pay for more than they know they will get (80% of those who applied paid for only what they were allocated, 23% applied for more), those who over will get 74% of extras shares, while Equity and Britak will gets 100% of what they applied for [as the Government and NSSF did not take part]). The big winner are transaction advisers First Africa Capital who are set to bag about Kshs. 31 million [$476,000] from the rights issue

Interest rates have quietly crept up in 2008. The Barclays Bond which closed today had rates of 11.5% for investors as do standard chartered fixed deposits as new loans from Barclays and Equity have crossed upwards of the 20%.

Jobs
most from the daily papers this week

Akili Africa: entry level programmers, ERP implementation consultants, customer relationship manager. d/l is 21/7

Capital Markets Authority: ICT manager, assistant managers [research & product development, policy analysis & planning, procurement & logistics, finance, investigations, ICT, human resources] officers [senior compliance, investigations, senior investigations, customer service, senior policy analysis & planning, legal enforcement, legal framework, policy analysis & planning] analysts [senior financial, financial, stores] d/l is 25/7 by snail mail 74800-00200 to the Acting CEO

CEO of the Constituencies development fund : apply by 31/7 using snail mail

EABL: sales director apply to hr.recruitment@eabl.com

Pilots at Kenya Airways

Management trainees at KCB. D/l is 16/7

Nairobi Stock Exchange: surveillance officer (detect illegal behavior/trades) . apply to recruitment@nse.co.ke by 18/7

Sameer Africa: head of procurement, planning, logistics, ERP administrator, network & systems administrator hr@sameerafrica.com by 21/7

MY gOVErNment
a bit of wishful political – mini-reshuffle
Ministry of Roads: John Michuki
Ministry of Finance: Peter Kenneth
Ministry of Environment: Amos Kimunya
Assistant Minister Home Affairs: Chirau Mwakwere
Minister for Transport: Franklin Bett

11 thoughts on “Unilever Bails

  1. andrew@jijinimarkets

    Agree with Michuki for Roads. Not sure about the rest, esp Mwakwere.

    Charging for content online is and will be a challenge for Business Daily (and Nation). When CNN, BBC, FT, Reuters and a whole bunch of other news organisations with arguably better content don’t charge, its a bold move BD is making.

    On the other hand, I guess they wouldn’t be doing it without willing customers lying in wait for the day they’ll be charged for articles. Even Nation seems to have enough customers for their premium content.

  2. Mwenyeji

    Kimunya should not be re-appointed. He should go to jail! Society should not reward criminals. Banks – remove kimunya from your list and try someone else. Once a thief always a thief. There are millions of people living in Kenya without all the ministerial privileges, he should be able to deal with it.

  3. Adam23

    Wasn’t Peter Kenneth opposing MP’s taxation, or was this just another rumor from our country men/women where things are never substantiate before accusation.

    Someone confirm, only if you know the actual facts behind this…no rumors plz.

    Another pointer – I think all MPS should have a minimum education at least A-levels or completed the 8-4-4 systems to be elected. Kenyans need an educated youth. Emphasize and expenditure for education to our youth is vital to improve our peoples…and this is not possible to do so from leaders who don’t have the education. You cannot give what you don’t have and also it will improve our policies and governance. I am tired of the ignorance and thought process of some of these MPS. Shame!! Shame!!

  4. coldtusker

    How can HFCK favour some shareholders over others?

    I read in the Nation that Equity Bank & BAAM got 100% allocation of the additional rights shares while the rest got only 74%.

    Fishy. The Transaction Adviser was wanjiku mugane of first africa who is close to EB & BAAM. She was a director of EB at one time.

    All shareholders should be treated in a transparent & fair manner.

  5. Ssembonge

    I’d be interested to know the success Nation/Standard online subscription.

    Users are conditioned to expect free information from the web. I’m yet to meet a subscriber. It’s no wonder that WSJ and NYT, both boasing of affluent readers, are moving away from subscription to advertising models.

    Why does NMG want to re-invent the wheel?

  6. acolyte

    I doubt Nation are making or are going to make enough money from the charging for content operation. The online readership that is willing to pay as someone said can get that information elsewhere from better publications.
    If Nytimes arent charging me to read stuff online why should Nation even though they are one of the bigger papers in East AFrica.

  7. Anonymous

    BDAfrica are slowly but surely pushing me away from their site. Why charge for an internet based publication? Aren’t they earning enough from the prints?

    I agree with the first two bloggers, your list of appointments suck, this is unlike you. I am not saying it is impossible to happen, but it is a no no.

  8. bankelele

    Andrew@jijinimarkets: president rarely fires (loyal) people, the least he could do is demote chirau

    Mwenyeji: Ok.

    Fimbo: Ok

    Adam23: As Kilonzo told Kimunya – there are a lot of educated MP’s with great CV’s in parliament [check out Mzalendo]. However Finance needs a ‘weighty’ minister who’s well known in finance circles, who else can PNU draw on?

    Coldtusker: no one seems to care about the criteria, maybe the anchor shareholders were more keen than any other investor in terms of the amount paid over-and-above [e.g. for GoK and NSSF forfeited shares]

    Ssembonge: esp. when most of their target readers (CEO’s managers, bankers) can read it free everyday (office copies)

    Acolyte: I paid about @230 lat year for all my publications bought in one year (variety of newspapers and magazines) I can’t show that commitment to one newspaper. Who is their target?

  9. coldtusker

    Banks: No… Rights purchased on the market are not considered applications for additional shares.

    There is an element of chutzpah by the HFCK board… what next time?

    It is the “don’t care” attitude (who stole your goat?) that has created the Grand Regency scam…

  10. Anonymous

    I wonder who Business Daily is targeting. The newly revamped Standard is looking good; they have redone their site to incorporate posting of comments for all their articles. That’s the way to go.. not charging people for content.

    Joy

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