HENATES

Kenya's flagship telecommunications company Safaricom Ltd by half year to September, had little drops of pain that eased its profit margin a little to 32.7% from 32.8% previously. According to unaudited figures for the period released today, all of its many income streams recorded growth but the more outstanding were fixed revenue up 34.7%; Mobile revenue up 34% and service revenue which ended 12.09% up. In the end growth in total direct revenue rose by 12.1% to Kes 114.43bn from Kes 102.1bn. The first little pain was the fact that income from other sources did not growth at this rate. In fact, Other income dropped by 86% to Kes 0.32bn; finance income increased by 9.64% to Kes 0.91bn and share of associated companies profit more or less closed firm. Hence Safaricom's total income for the six months grew by 9.93% to Kes115.67bn in spite of the double digit growth in direct revenue. Then the next little pain was that direct cost rose by 9.02% to Kes 35.43m. Not that bad really bu...

For the second day, November 2, 2017 investors interest in Sterling Bank was high again like old times leading for superlative number of deals. On Wednesday November 1, 2017 Sterling bank paced number of deals with 522 involving 31.958m shares. November 2, was something else altogether. It witnessed 1321 deals which resulted in only 13.47m shares changing hands. This was 24.1% of the day's total number of deals and must have been very active in growing number of deals to 5472, up 32.8% on Wednesday's 4119. Sterling bank had for a long time closed firm but this time around, it mustard N0.01 gain to close at N1.01 per share. The nearest number of deals by any other equity was FBN Holdings 598 deals for leading 73.4m offload worth N513.22m. Incidentally, FBN ended the day with rare leading 9.22% or N0.6 per share rise. FBN had closed Wednesday at N6.51 per share, opened the day at N6.78, hit day low of N6.5 then a high and close of N7.11 per share. The only other equity with above...

At the Nairobi securities exchange today November 2, 2017, the bond market closed on the low side once again as traded value came to Kes 444.4m in 38 deals. Yesterday, it had closed almost at the same level with 32 deals being struck for Kes 455.6m worth. Interestingly, there was a cluster of deals in treasury bonds of below Kes 50m but the government stocks of above Kes 50m that usually accounted for each day's deals, recorded deals in only 6 stocks two were for less than Kes 50,000 worth each. At the equity segment however, it was more a case of far more price gains (23 in all) than price drops (13) but in spite of this, the All shares index closed down marginally by 0.29% or 0.48 points to 163.48. Kakuzi ltd, a relatively high priced equity in the agricultural sector, must have helped in no small measure in the ASI drop. This was because it led Kes losers with Kes 6.00 drop as it traded at Kes 324 per share through the day compared to Kes 330 with which it closed November 1. In ...

Unlike in the month of September when it led price losers with N40.40 per share decline, Seplat Petroleum in October at the Nigerian stock exchange paced 51 gains with N44.90 per share. It closed the month at N495 per share compared to N450.1 by the close of September. Trailing it was Nestlé Nigeria that hit new high in October as it closed the month at N1252 per share. This was N31.89 per share higher than September's closing of N1220.11 per share. Other major price increases within the month were International Breweries rise by N11.99 to N48.99 from September's N37 per share and Dangote Cement's N11.01 per share top up to N224.00 from N212.99 previously. The price drops, at 33 within the month were not only fewer than gains, also no tumble was up to half of the gains made by Seplat Petroleum and Nestlé Nigeria within the same period. Lead price drops were the N15 each decline recorded in both Nigerian Breweries and 11 PLC, hitherto Mobil oil. Nigerian breweries declined t...

Just a couple of hours ago, participants in the 5th edition of Nigerian stock exchange workshop on capital market response to still growing menace of worldwide cybercrime closed discussions and Henates was one of them. It was held at the NSE event centre and key contributors were Mr Ade Bajomo, the executive director Market operations of the NSE, Favour Femi Oyewole, Tope Aladelusi from Delloites;  Mr Ademola Alabi CEO Triple A consulting and Microsoft Nigerian director. Mr Bajomo set the tune for the whole workshop and for an IT ignoramus like Henates, it was very eye opening as he, in the simplest of language, gave brief history of the computer, painted the picture of how data generation and storage has grown over the years and the accompanying need to keep the same data safe and secure. He also explained vulnerability of different organisations particularly small and medium scale companies; present day inability of regulation to catch in many countries; the fallacy ...

Kenya's quoted company, Olympia Capital Holdings Ltd is not having the best of times, according to half year figures to August 2017 released today, October 31, 2017. Firstly, its revenue decreased by 7.84% to Kes 228.1m from Kes 247.5m by August 2016. Secondly, its operating cost refused to go down as fast revenue dropped. It declined by 5.16% to Kes 213.2m from Kes 22.4m previously. The net result of this was that operating profit decreased by 34.4% to Kes 14.9m from Kes 22.7m earlier. Olympia Capital got one good shot in the arm though and that was from 52.8% dive in finance cost to Kes 2.76m from Kes 5.85m most perhaps because of the cap placed in interest rates in Kenya. But, this only succeeded in reducing the % drop in profit before tax to 23.6% compared to the higher drop in operating profit. The profit by August 2017 came to Kes 12.5m. Meaning that on every Kes 100 income by August 2016, Olympia Capital gained Kes 6.83, but now this has shrunk to Kes 5.48. The trend downwar...

Cautious price making continued at the Nigerian stock exchange today October 30 2017 despite avalanche of third quarter figures in recent days. The All shares index edged up by a cautious 0.06% to 36,484.30, the second lowest % growth in October and 3rd lowest since August. The lowest growth in recent times was October 19's 0.01% to 36,645.65 followed by September 29's 0.03% to 35,439.98 and then today's growth. Indeed, with one trading day to go, the month of October this year could be classified as one of cautious price making upwards as most days ended with either % drops or % increases below 1% . Perhaps, many had hoped that with nine months updates pouring in, the picture will change but today confirmed instead that it may take a while, if at all. In all there were 18 price gains compared to 23 drops with none of the losers going down by above 5%. On the other hand, two rose by above that. Dangote Flour closed N0.84 or 10.17% per share to pace % gains. It opened at N8....