Tuesday, April 24, 2007

QUITE A LOT ON OUR PLATES

Kengen

So the government has pulled a fast one on us and decided to pause the kengen secondary offer, citing the non-reflectiveness of the current price on the real share value, and resulting in a maximum share appreciation over today’s trading to Kshs. 25.50. Demand was crazy against almost zero supply. If the government was looking to placing a higher price on the additional 400 mn. shares, it most definitely will get that, with the price looking like it will shoot up to settle above the Kshs. 30s level.

Access

Access looks to be slowly picking with the trickle of clients increasing gradually with each day at brokerage houses. Of Course no queues have been seen as yet, and none my be seen as this offer may not pull large crowds with the high cut-off and many questions in investors heads regarding the future prospects and the possible risks.

Kenya Re

Kenya re looks hard on Access hills with the planned IPO. Though dates have not yet been communicated, we have already started seeing a number of advertisements on all media modes as though to soften investors heart, quite characteristic of an up-coming IPO.

Safaricom

Now only a date and a price separate us from one of the largest IPO in Kenya over. The decision on the markets has been made, and the only fear now is the possible price and the shares that will be availed to Kenyans considering that we are looking at one very small NSE and a very large LSE.

I guess Kenyans have quite some chewing to do, but that will do well to keep them off the political arena after Mag gen Hussein Ali took a stand to rid us off all the fun and intrigues characteristic of an election year.

5 comments:

pesa tu said...

Bet Gvt will have to do something to sweeten the Kenya-Re offer.
Accesskenya is snowballing slowly,will most likely have a full subscription

Anonymous said...

The Ubuntu Group
P O Box 45213, 00100
Nairobi, KENYA
Tel: +254 - 20 - 3876400
Fax: +254 - 20 - 2724996
Website: www.ubuntugroup.org
29 June, 2007

Dear Hisagal;

RE: REQUEST TO BE LISTED IN YOUR BLOG DOMAIN

We wish to express our interest to work with you.

We are Ubuntu Investment Group, a pan-African investment outfit that primarily focuses on micro-finance, private equity and capital markets investment. As a Group we have consistently operated for over 1 ½ years using this period to horne our investment philosophy, grow our client base and expand our investment options.

The Group was recently incorparated as a limited liability company in
Kenya and has since inception, received growing interest from like -minded investors (businesspeople) expressing their desire and willingness to work with the Group.

Our Website (www.ubuntugroup.org), has since its launch in September 2006 grown exponentially (by 3,570.83%) in its web traffic as shown by the stats below:

2006>>>
October - 24
November - 93
December - 152
2007>>>
January - 184
February - 202
March - 350
April - 408
May - 726
June – 881

As a Group, we are also impressed by the content and quality of your Blog and we see an opportunity for synergy in working together. We offer our website for listing on your Blog site. We expect that we will both gain from the relevance and similarity of our web content, not to mention the burst in increased web visits.

We await your response in kind.


Mwenda Ntalami.
Marketing Director,
Ubuntu Investment Group





Kind Regards,

Mwend Ntalami,
Director,
Ubuntu Invesment Group.

Unknown said...

Safaricom (Investor Opinion):

Ati 5 bob with minimum 1000 shares? Ridiculous! Is there political pressure or are the transaction advisors a bunch of morons?!!!

According to BdAfrica, we're talking of an additional 1.5 million shareholders in the Safcom Shareholder register.

POST-IPO COSTS:
Has anyone thought of the massive costs of organizing AGMs, Priniting Annual reports, sending out dividend cheques etc? At a macro level, Infrastructural and resource demands for processing a massive number of small value share allocations needs to be thought about!

INVESTOR LOSSES:
Serious investors lose out if all they get is a paltry 1000 shares worth 5000 bob. Even if there is a massive bull run resulting un 500% increase - you only get 25,000 which is nothing to write home about - considering the hype!

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:
Perhaps there is a *conflict of interest* since transaction advisors, being brokers also, know that they will gain more commissions in a volatile secondary market if the number of speculative shareholders is very high! The buy-hold investor is not a stock broker's friend!

REFUND TRANSACTIONS:
Then the number of refund transactions in case of a massive oversubscription will be *mind boggling* - and an unnecessary waste of resources and funds (due to expenses incurred)!

OBJECTIVE ALLOCATION CRITERIA:
IPOs should only be targeted at serious investors - not speculators! The allocation structure should aim to minimize the chances of massive post-IPO refunds which are detrimental to the economy (idle capital).

We need sanity and stability in the secondary market. Considering the high value of the company and the need to minimize refunds, the shares should cost approx 50 bob each and the minimum *value* of shares bought during the IPO should be 100k-200k.

INVESTMENT GROUPS:
This will force jua kali investors to form organized investment groups and minimize risk of instability at NSE due to excessive speculation typically associated with such investors.

HIGH NET WORTH INDIVIDUALS:
We also need to consider "High Net Worth" investors as separate from corporate investors. E.g. our MPs and people like Chris Kirubi.

Minimum allotment for such individuals should be 1-2 Million shillings per shareholder.

ETHICS
The transaction advisors are being paid to do a job - let them do it properly - without turning the IPO into a future commissions cash cow for their own benefit!

Unknown said...

SAFARICOM IPO: BROKERS WANT TO TURN IT INTO A COMISSIONS RIP-OFF!

The mass market push by stock brokers is a scam. All they want is to get as much commissions as possible AT THE EXPENSE OF ORDINARY KENYANS.

Transaction advisors have major conflict of interest. They have to recover expenses related to their 5 cents contracts. The only way to do that is to have a large number of speculative and uninformed "investors" who will keep the comissions pouring in.

Keep in mind - the brokers get paid for both buy and sell transactions. The more speculation and instability the better for them!

The argument about kenyans sharing a piece of the "cake" is totally flawed and is meant to appeal to the "get-rich-quick" mentality of uninformed Kenyans.

Any windfalls will not be significant and grim reality will strike misled kenyans when the initial excitement goes down.

If the IPO targets the masses - ONLY THE STOCKBROKERS WILL GAIN.

This is a potentially massive scandal - and no one is seeing it!

Anonymous said...

Uko wapi dada???