No disrespect to the Eveready IPO which opens today, but there appears to be less enthusiasm for what it now the 3rd IPO this year after Kengen and Scangroup. There are lines outside stockbrokers today, and will be around for the next two weeks but nowhere near Kengen size.
Most of the fatigue comes from the over-subscription and resultant fractional allocations of shares to investors – each requiring several trips, phone calls and hours spent pursuing IPO shares.
Likewise to buy Eveready, I’d have to sell something or if I wrote a cheque i'd have to make several trips to my broker - who's normally super efficient. But at IPO time, things get hectic with the long queues and harried staff - payments/orders get misplaced or have to be corrected, and a second trip would likely be in order, followed by a third in a month's time, after the IPO results are known (11/12), to collect the inevitable refund cheque (after 15/12).
I may be better off just waiting to the shares to list (on 18/12) then simply send my broker an e-mail to buy the shares. Price volatility can be expected on day one, but with Christmas around teh corner, there won’t be much activity on the exchange and the price should hold steady (I hope) till January.
Careful banks: Unlike before when several banks lined up to offer loans to buy Kengen shares, they are still available, but there’s no marketing or fanfare announcing them. Also, while Kengen was sold on almost every street corner, this time KCB is the only commercial bank selling Evereyady shares.
Still I must commend some brokers who have opened satellite offices to process IPO applications, thus easing the crowds at their main offices.
BARS free
Barclays shareholders will endorse the sale of their BARS to CAPSEC of South Africa - in addition to a share capital increase, bonus, and share split at an EGM in Nairobi on December 8. Register closes Nov 29
No parking
The latest ludicrous proposal by city council is to double the daily parking fee from 70 to 140 shillings ($2) in order to finance the construction of parking garages. What the council should do is have a bond or enter an arrangement with a bank that will finance construction of the parking in record time and the council can repay the bank over the long term. The council would be ill-advised to finance construction using daily collections of which it has little control. The proposal also has no end date which means we could be paying double for the next 10 years, long after the project is over, or without any new parking garages ever being built.
Posta booster
There's a story in the East African today about how the Postal corporation will reap over 16 million shillings ($226,000) from Kengen mailing annual accounts and notices for their AGM on November 30. Kengen had to pay for tens of thousands of stamps and has budgted 80 million shillings ($1m) for the day.
Nyramid update
A prominent city Church led by a charismatic preacher is behind one of the newest Nyramids.
Tesco’s here
Tesco, a former partner of Uchumi has opened its own Nairobi supermarket.
Cadillac’s to Kenya?
Cadillac returns to Africa via South Africa with right hand drive cars which will then be sold to other Sub-Saharan African countries -with BLS, SRX and STS models arriving early next year. Geenral Motors has a significant presence in the Nairobi through isuzu truck and minibus sales.
