New Nation

Friday December 1 marks the launch of a revamped Daily Nation. Hope it streches to other papers the rest of the week, not just Friday's - Monday and Wednesday could also do with a bump.

KQ goes regional

As expected Kenya Airways will get some regional jets, the Embraer 170 which can be expected to serve Kisumu (once fixed) and other regional routes. The Kisumu route showed the preference passengers have for jets versus turbo- props.

An earlier post & debate

More investment news
- Diamond Trust rights are trading on the NSE
- Stanbic Uganda IPO open to Kenyans
- Mumias opens this month
- Is the Family Finance capital raising legal? They say yes, other banks say no, CMA says nothing

Housekeeping
+ve In the last year, Hotmail (which I was about to abandon) has increased mailbox sizes from 2MB to 25 MB and now to 1 GB.

Anonymous comments are allowed again, but are likely to be ignored.

-ve my hotmail address has come to the attention of some of our West African brothers such as Ibrahim, Isaaic More, Idris Musa, Adamu Abubakar, Bala Mohammed, Zuma Amed, Ken Ono, Kaburo Abu, George Watara who have all sent me multi-million-dollar business proposals of which I am yet to decide on.

Opportunities on the horizon

Yesterday, for about an hour, Mt. Kenya was clearly visible from Nairobi, high in the horizon with its snow peaks. It's occasionally visible, usually early in the morning and it was a sight to see until some clouds moved in.


looked like this

Anyway, also on the horizon is:

Cheap Flights:
East African Safari Air has introduced a buy one, get one free ticket to Mombasa up to December 12.

also Coldtusker & Kenya Airways were correct about Kisumu - today EASA has also canceled flights to Kisumu citing the poor state of the runway

VIA Uganda has introduced one way fares of $69 from Nairobi to Entebbe starting on Monday.

Hotel revival :
At the Coast new hotels are springing up to capture the increasing number of tourists and visitors at the coast. Sarova are adding a hotel at the South Coast, Neptune may add two facilities more while 2007 could also see a return of Intercontinental hotels to the Kenya coast.

Marital lawyers:
Yesterday also had a nice chat with a group at which it was unanimously agreed that, in light of the Samuel Gichuru divorce & property fight, there is a growth market for lawyers who specialize in divorce cases, investigators to trace assets, and lawyers to draft creative prenuptial agreements.

Green cards: Just over a week left in the US 2008 diversity visa lotter as applications must be submitted online by Sunday December 3.

Women directors at state corporations of the Republic of Kenya: Following President Kibaki’s recent directive that 30% of the posts in public service be allocated to women, the government now invites qualified Kenyan women invited to submit their CV's to join the boards of state corporations – they must be university graduates with proven track records in senior management experience and be individuals of high integrity. Submit CV’s to the Secretary, state corporation advisory committee, Office of president, P O Box 62345-00200 or KICC 9th floor Nairobi.

Other Jobs

East African breweries:
- Head of human resources – EABL Kenya demand
- Human resource manager – EABL Kenya supply
Apply to hr.recruitment@eabl.com by 8/12

Country sales representative (Tanzania) at Haco. Apply to jobs@haco.co.ke by 1/12

Head of marketing at Housing Finance. Apply to human.reosurces@housing.co.ke by 4/12

Project administrator at ICRAF (world Agroforestry centre)/CIMMYT. Apply to icrafhru@cgiar.com by 8/12

ICT strategy consultants at Kenya airports authority. Apply through Hawkins.associates@khigroup.com

Kenya commercial bank (Tanzania)
- Head of corporate banking
- Head of retail banking
Apply to the divisional director HR KCB 48400-00100 by 30/11

Public relations officer at Pan Africa Insurance. Apply to hr@pan-africa.com by 29/11

Safaricom careers: senior manager reporting, optimization engineer, senior optimization engineer, senior CRM systems developer, credit controller, senior manager – organization development & change management.

Tiomin :
- Chief accountant
- Internal auditor
- Human resource officer
apply to apply@tiomingkenya.com by 30/11

But
There’s more madness from the City Council of Nairobi whose strong arm tactics continue to frighten businesses out of downtown Nairobi. From knocking over restaurant sidewalk flower pots even as they plant their own at roundabouts, to charging exorbitant amounts for businesses to put up signboards (i.e. advertising) or any promotion. Yesterday Kenya airways staff were handing out flyers promoting the “2,500 to Mombasa fares” and they all bore “city council planning department/urban design/development section” stamps at the back - I wonder how much that cost or how long it took someone to rubber stamp each flyer.

Now, barely a month we laughed at the mayor’s ludicrous suggestion to double parking charges (i.e. 70 shillings in the morning 70 in afternoon), the council has informed motorists that from December 1, parking off-street will costs 100 shillings per entry - previously it was 100 per day. Also the new fee applies to motorists who bought and paid for quarterly monthly permits. So in addition the almost 4,000 shillings they paid in October, they will have to fork over another 500 per week.

Thanksgiving Portfolio

Shares I own
Crown Berger
Diamond Trust
Express Kenya
Kenya Airways
Kenya Commercial Bank
Kenya Electricity Generation Company
Sameer Africa
Scangroup
* Uchumi (suspended)

Verdict: Surprisingly little change from six months ago

Performance: The Motley Fool advises that investors should beat the share index to consider their returns a success. The NSE 20 share index is up 30% in six months while my portfolio is up about 35% from May. *(The NSE index still lists Uchumi and if I zero it from my calculations my portfolio is up only about 30% in six months)

What’s changed?
In: Scangroup
Out: Housing Finance
Reduced: KCB, Kengen
In-n-Out: Sold Sameer Africa high bought it back low
Dividends: Payments from Kenya Airways KCB, D-Trust, Crown and Kengen (not factored into my performance return)
Bonus share: Express
Best performers: Scangroup, HFCK, D-Trust
Worst: Uchumi
Risk vs. Return: Some Nyramids give 30% a month returns, but I can’t afford to take those risks
Looking forward to: Kenya Re, Diamond Trust (rights), and Safaricom

No drugs at NSE

The Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) through a paid statement by its chairman, Mr. Jimnah Mbaru, has responded to recent allegations that the growth of funds invested at the NSE had come from drugs or other illegal sources.

He says it's mainly from a basic shift among institutions and individuals who previouly used to invest in land and real estate but have now moved to more liquid invstements such as to equities and government securities

The increased funds come from, among others sources:
- many Kenyan parents don’t have to pay primary school fees anymore since the advent of free primary education
- better management & compliance of pension funds who before had too much real estate investments including the NSSF
- increased insurance premium collections and increased corporate retained earnings
- substantial remittances by Kenyans in the Diaspora – estimated at $750 million to $1 billion annually
- international investors
- & first time investors in stock market including over 200,000 who bought into the Kengen IPO

22 November 1963

It happened long before I was born but this one event has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. It set the stage for the greatest web of conspiracy theories, signaled the end of an era, and plunged the world to new depths of the human horror. Before 9/11 it was, and arguably still is, captured by and became the most watched video tape in history. You can’t help but watch it again and again, second by second, this tragic moment in human history, the tape is silent but conveys cruelty, hope, horror - and screams many other emotions as a life ended while condemning others and altering millions more who questioned what they saw and what they were told

I have seen that tape in different formats, read dozens of books, seen hundred of photographs, and postulated many more what-if and why-was, who-did-it variations in my mind. It goes on and on. Somehow this mystery may never get solved until the day the world stops and we can rewind to that moment of that dark day and watch it from multiple angles and have the answers revealed.

Mombasa: so near, yet so far

Despite my earlier rant about being a dumbestic tourist who can’t' picture a holiday that doesn’t involve Mombasa
[beach/swimming/historic/ferry/boating/seafood/lazing/meditating/madafu]
of the edge of the world] the craving to visit the coast is back again. In my life I have seen the big five animals, and will do so again, but I am in no rush to go to the territory of a rogue buffalo or elephant armed only with a camera and a laptop.

The coast is a different story, a must see place even though it rarely changes. But December is not the best time to go to the coast – I was there last Christmas and the place was too crowded.

Reasons to go
Air fare deals: It's gotten a lot easier to get to the coast since fly540 has announced that they will fly to Mombasa for a round-trip fare of 5,440 shillings (about $75)
- This comes about six months after East African Safari Air launched Mombasa flights at a round-trip fare of 8,900 shillings.
- Now Kenya Airways has responded with rock bottom Kshs. 2,500 fares – but for flights the opposite way. i.e. from Mombasa to Nairobi from December 24 to 31 and from Nairobi to Mombasa from December 31 to January 6 2007.
- I hear that the road repairs are progressing well on the bad stretch near Mombasa.
- No water: Another reason to escape Nairobi is the water shortage. Even as the Nairobi water company is reporting increased profitability and collections there's a biting water shortage/rationing plan that is going on amid heavy rains. I have been reduced to a beggar going round to relatives & friends houses with 20 litre drums begging for water. I hope their neighbors don't think I am smuggling changaa to these houses.

Reasons against
- Bad timing because the Mombasa business community is not happy with how the Mombasa city council is managing the town
- Also at the tourism expo held at the Sarit centre at the beginning of November, most Mombasa hotel were reporting that they were fully booked for the December/Holiday period. Hence KQ having to have extra flights and having cheap tickets to fly the opposite way.
- Mombasa is flooded after some heavy rains
==
Madaraka update
The sale process of 600 houses by the Nairobi City Council and National Housing Corporation commenced in March 2006. However 359 tenants sued halting sale of 291 of the houses. The NHC and NCC are however proceeding with the sale of the other 309 houses whose tenants paid 10% deposit and are now expected to pay the balance by 22 January 2007 while a judge will issue a ruling on the 291 houses on December 4.

November Investments

The middle of November brings a choice of three new investment options to look at:

Eveready OFS
At 9.50 shillings per share this is the cheapest to buy. Others have gone through the prospectus. prospectus

This is a company that will largely depend on rural areas to remain in the dark i.e. anti KPLC. But the company needs top get into new products such as batteries for solar gadgets and laptop’s batteries- things that will provide future customers. But when asked about R&D on Capital FM this week, the MD mentioned that this is something they rely on Eveready US to do. So the views of an African country will not rank up there. Also watch to see if ICDCI retains it stake or takes advantage of the euphoria of retail investors buying in at the front to walk out of the back door (like Uchumi).

The shares are likely to be over-subscribed and I still maintain that the hassle of time spent visiting stockbrokers coupled with the inevitable refund of most of your money in a month’s time is not an enticing option. So I’ll wait till December, or opt for the bare minimum (500 1,000 shares at 9,500 shillings). Going by other offers this year (Kengen, Scangroup), the shares may double or triple in price in the first week and then stabilize after a month.

Diamond Trust rights issue
Priced at 50/=, good outlook for a bank looking to expand regionally and possibly absorb another bank next year. I have had the shares for over a year bought at 27/= now trading at about 76=. With the rights being sold at 50, that means one can get an immediate 50% return by flipping them immediately. I’ll probably buy my rights, and more, and hold.

Family Finance Building Society (FFBS)
This fast rising building society that intends to become a bank next year. Shares are priced at 60/= and are open to account holders, but anyone can open an account and buy the shares.

Like Equity: In preparing to become a bank, they have dutifully being publishing their quarterly accounts. Equity grew by 20% while FFBS grew its assets by 18% by June 2006 and both achieved their entire 2005 profits in the first half year of 06. FFBS is about 3.5X smaller than Equity, less efficient (operating costs are about 25% higher), and mobilises deposits similarly, but their fast growing loan book, like Equity’s, also comes with growing NPA’s.

Equity raised capital to become a bank in a private placement at 136/=. Thereafter the shares went to the OTC where I had a chance to buy, but passed on, the shares at 75/=. They were listed in 2006 at 90/= shillings and have settled in the 100 – 130 range.

Difficult to judge, but I’d rate it as a buy even though they have been very slow to provide information for new investors e.g. on who others shareholders are, when we’ll know about allocations, refunds, listing etc.

Pot Pourri

Biz news

Airlines
- Want to start an airline? Boeing has created a site to guide your operations into this very risky business. (From Randy’s Journal - a Boeing VP's blog!)
- Kenya Airways now offers flight status information via phone to passengers at 20/= per SMS.
- There was a small story on the KTN news indicating that Five forty aviation (Lonrho air) which will launch air services to Mombasa this month will be priced as a low cost no frills airline.
- Pan Africa airways (which is hiring crews for F27 and B737aircraft) has also been licensed to operate from Nairobi to Mombasa, the coast and Loki.
- Jet Airways of India plans to launch flights to Nairobi next year

Banking: Kenwsitch and Pesa Point are collaborating to enable ATM customers to access each other’s networks.

Opportunities

Jobs
from the daily papers

Financial accountant - Nairobi at the Institute of security studies. Apply to jobs@issafrica.org by 24/11

Internal audit manager at Oserian flowers. Apply to jobs@oserian.com by 22/11

Pricewaterhousecoopers: (i) Financial effectiveness [senior consultants and consultant](ii) IT effectiveness [senior consultants and consultant] (iii) governance, risk & compliance/financial management in the public sector [senior consultants and consultant] (iv) governance, risk & compliance/internal audit services [senior consultants and consultant] (v) manager, human resource consultancy (vi) Human resource consultant [senior consultants and consultant]. Apply to the human capital manager at recruitment.ke@ke.pwc.com by 30/11

Asian languages
Last year a Confucius Institute opened at the University of Nairobi teaching Chinese languages. Now Kenyatta University if offering a diploma course in Japanese languages as a 2 year program beginning in January 2007 (application deadline is 24 /11)

Tender
- the Kenya anti corruption authority (KACA) has advertised to procure an interview recording system (that works). KACA also plans to open an office in Mombasa.

IPO fizzle

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.

Yoweri musings

advice from a neighbour

President Yoweri Museveni gave some history, leadership, business, and investment insights in a speech when he opened the new Serena hotel in Uganda.

Some of the things he mentioned touch on the future prospects of Tiomin, Kengen, Sasini, Serena, coffee marketing, and relations with China & and other foreign donors. I welcome any recent Ugandan visitors to comment, since I am yet to visit the Pearl of Africa beyond Malaba (trip planned for 2007).

Corporate Blog?

This afternoon I had an interview with a company about a website - and my concept was for the company to incorporate a blog to generate interest in the website and market the company better to its diverse customers, many of who accesses its products over the internet.

I mentioned that other corporations were doing this now and it gave a human face to their communications from CEO’s to customer service people.

I don’t know if my idea went over well, and I hope that I was wrong in my feeling afterwards that some of the panel appeared to have that we already have a website, blogu kitu gani? face.

After such a session, you are always every critical of yourself. During question time, I wanted to instead rush back to one or two points I had just remembered. And even taking the stairs down afterwards, I wanted to go back to the conference room and give them another 3 or 4 points that I had forgotten to mention that would strengthen my case.

Oh well, see how it goes. It was a very nice company, good to work with, and appears to have a nice work culture, and a very laid back (low bureaucracy) atmosphere.

Opportunities

from the daily papers this week

Manager at the Carnivore restaurant Nairobi. Apply to carnivore@carnivore.co.ke

Classic Camps: chief accountant, senior accountant(s), sales & marketing manager sales executive(s), executive assistant. Apply to classiccamps@accesskenya.com by 15/11

Commercial Bank of Africa: (i) internal audit manager [Ref: AM-BR] (ii) internal auditor [IA-BR] (iii) account relationship manager, corporate banking [ARM-CB] (iv) account relationship manager, business banking unit [ARM-BBU]. Apply to jobs@cba.co.ke by 21/11

Communications commission of Kenya: Supply, deliver, install and maintain solar energy solutions st CCK sites in Taiita Taveta, Isilolo, Suba and Thika districts. Submissions to solar@cck.go.ke by 13/12

Communications professional at DFID. Request an application form from dfid@adeptsystems.co.ke and reply to recruit@adeptsystems.co.ke by 1/12

Property valuer at Housing Finance. Apply to human.resources@housing.co.ke by 20/11

ILRI aka international livestock research institute. (i) Internal audit manager (ii) resource mobilization officer (iii) help desk administrator. Apply to recruit-ilri@cgiar.org by 24/11

Law Society of Kenya: advocates to consult on current professional development of lawyers, review the conduct process (standards & ethics) in place and make proposals on the same. Apply to lsk@lsk.or.ke by 24/11

McCann Erickson: (i) general manager (ii) account director. Apply to Emily.Mutua@scangroup.biz

National Museums of Kenya: (i) director, development & corporate affairs (ii) director, institute of primate research (iii) director, administration & HR (iv) director(s) (3) museum sites & monuments – for central, western and coast regions of Kenya. Apply to dgnmk@museums.or.ke by 30/11

Internal audit manager at Oserian.a apply to jobs@oserian.com by 22/11

Logistics manager at Oxfam. Apply to kenyajobs@oxfam.org.uk by 22/11

Practical Action aka intermediate technology development group: (i) program officer [technical support] (ii) program officer [financial support]. Apply to recruitment@practicalaction.or.ke by 24/11

Royal Media Services (i) ICT assistant (ii) ICT technician. Apply to hr@royalmedia.co.ke by 24/11

Sotik Tea (i) engineering manager (ii) field assistants/management trainees. Apply to info@sotikteas.co.ke by 24/11

Informing the NSE public

Read an article from the Washington Post where the Chairman on the US Securities & Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox, is intrigued by the idea of using blogs to disseminate important corporate information.

"A 2000 rule known as fair disclosure ended a long-standing practice of companies providing significant information to stock analysts and other Wall Street insiders ahead of the public."

Monday’s naked insider manipulation of Citi Trust shares should have been a wake up call for NSE on information and rules for prices and trades. Watch to see if there’s any recall or punishment stemming from the ill-fated trade.

This is very important because currently pension funds, Kenyans in the Diaspora, farmers and other new investors are all stepping into the market and things like the Citi Trust fiasco tend to undermine our confidence in shares. The share splits of EA Cables and ICDCI were self-fulfilling prophecies – share price shoots up about 6X in a few months, leading directors to announce splits to make them more affordable.

”when you attract foreign investors, you also attract criminals who specialise in economic crimes” – Tommy Prins of Deloitte

Related NSE needs EDGAR

New age for investors
The Nation’s Weekly Advertiser interviews the brains behind Eight.co.ke, Jijini Marketsand Stock Detective who offer financial information on activities at the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Pick up this weeks' free copy of the newspaper around town in Nairobi and hopefully the story will appear soon on their website. (ed: none are affiliated with the NSE)

Upcoming @ NSE

- Barclays Rumour: The Bank will announce a 5 for 1 share split and a 1 for 38 bonus. Note: I don’t own any Barclays shares

- Riba Capital tips on the next Mumias offer.

- Family Finance Building Society will offer 15 million new shares to account holders at 60 shillings each (minimum placement is 30,000 shillings). The ongoing offer runs to the end of the month and may overshadow the, rather low key, Eveready IPO (which starts next Monday) in the same way Equity Bank’s listing stole the limelight (and perhaps investor cash) from Uchumi’s re-capitalizations earlier this year.

Family Finance mimics Equity which also raised 500 million shillings in capital in August 2005. FFBS was expected to be a licensed as commercial bank by June 2006 but that has likely been delayed by the Central Bank until they shore up more share capital.

November 7 Opportunities

Jobs

Africa Trade Insurance Agency: (i) assistant accountant (ii) administration officer. Apply to Recruitment@Africa-ECA.com

Auditors (8) at Constituency Development Fund national management committee secretariat of the Government of Kenya. Apply to cdf@wananchi.com by 4/12

General Manager at Dyer & Blair (Uganda). Apply to hcapjobs@wananchi.com by 17/11

Investigator (broadcast piracy) at Multichoice Kenya (DStv) . Apply to nkariuki@kenya.multichoice.co.za by 20/11

Pan African Airways: captains for (B737 and F27), first officers for (B737 and F27) and training captains (B737 and F27). Apply to the chief pilot at orcom@worldline.co.za

USAID (i) Senior regional conflict management & governance advisor (ii) project development specialist. Apply to hrnairobi@usaid.gov by 17/11

Real Estate

KCB Houses: Simba Villas, Embakasi. Maisonettes at 4.6 million and Flats at 3.45 million shillings each.

Factory Complex: Industrial plot with 50 acres (out of which are occupied by 20 by factory) on a complex in Nanyuki – with all utilities connected, 5 godowns, and administration block.

Property Listings: New website of property listings. I’m still a big fan of Nyumbanet.

News

Econet are yet to pay for a mobile license ($27 million)

Safaricom: Network rollout equipment suppliers are invited to submit bids to the company. However no new dealers are being added – so stop bothering them!

KQ gets some competition on its popular and profitable Nigeria - Dubai and also Nairobi to China routes from new entrant China Southern which will fly from Beijing to Lagos, via Dubai from next year. From African Flyer - great airline blog.

McCann Erickson Kenya wound up – now a part of Scangroup

No more KR: Kenya Railways ceased passenger & freight operations on October 31.

Tea company to be taken over?

Maid Sabotage

I went home one day this week and found that the maid had sold my entire stack of precious newspapers that I have meticulously collected over the last 5 years.

It’s partly my fault because I had separated and tied several stacks to be sold with instructions that the others not sorted /tied up were not to be sold. However when the newspaper buyers came round, she sold the entire lot – tied & untied newspapers and away went historic articles from the nation, standard, people, weekly citizen, financial post, defunct tabloids like Kenya confidential, Patriot and some foreign newspapers - pages & pages of business articles, company & executive profiles, election & referendum stories, career guides, strategic & other business ideas, bar-fighting, sexcapades and corrupt deals of politicians etc. - vital sources of information and references for bankelele - all gone to be recycled or to wrap/pack pieces of meat at the supermarket.

The last time I sold my newspapers was after the referendum and 60 kilos of newspapers netted about 855 shillings.

The gain this time was much less (about 500/= to go towards groceries) but the loss was priceless

Related: More maid drama.

Bridgestone Exit?

One theory for the massive volumes of Sanmeer Africa (formerly Firestone) shares traded at the is that Bridgestone is finally disposing of its 14.9% (41 million shares) it still holds in company almost two years after the partnership break-up.

November 3 Jobs

Most are from the daily papers this week

Afri Afya: (i) Health knowledge management officer (ii) Project administrator (iii) Project officer.
Apply to info@afriafya.org by 15/11

Akili Africa: (i) Programs & implementation consultant, (ii) Technical sales people. Apply to jobs@akiliafrica.com by 10/11

Bamburi Cement: (i) Quarry manager (ii) Plant manager (iii) Project engineer (iv) Legal officer.
Apply to lo@careerconnections.co.ke by 15/11

Celtel : (i) Financial directors (ii) Financial controllers. Apply to finance_vacancies@celtel.com by 8/11

Gap marketing (i) Team leader (3) (ii) Retail representatives (32) (iii) HR & financial assistant. Apply to jobs@gap-marketing.com by 10/11

Leasing advisor at IFC in (Kigali Rwanda). D/L is 10/11

Magadi Soda: (i) Plant operators (ii) Shift analysts (iii) technicians in (a) Mechanical maintenance (b) Electrical maintenance (c) Welding & fabrication. Apply to recruit@magadisoda.co.ke by 17/11

Accountant at Pricewaterhousecoopers. Apply to recruitment.ke@ke.pwc.com by 17/11

Brand manager at Reckitt Benckiser EA. Apply to HR.RBEA@reckittbenckiser.com by 17/11

Sameer Agriculture & Livestock (Uganda): (i) Senior milk procurement managers (2) (ii) plant operators (6) (iii) general manager sales & marketing (iv) business development manager (v) sales executives (6) and other vacancies. Apply to dairy@creambell.co.ug by 30/11

Key Account manager at Tetra Pak. Apply to recruit.ke@tetrapak.com by 24/11

Chief Technical Advisor (CTA) Decentralisation at UNDP in Nairobi (with frequent travel in Somalia). Apply to registry.so@undp.org by 10/11

East African Breweries AGM

The 2006 EABL AGM was held at Safari Park Hotel in November 2 at 11:00 a.m. Registration was a breeze – with almost as many proxies as shareholders and it was a very quick AGM thereafter with the agenda– approval of accounts, dividend, directors’ election & remuneration and auditors – all done within a half hour. With a full board le by Chairman Jeremiah Kierieni and MD Gerald Mahinda, all directors except for Evans Mwaniki (KQ chairman)

New finance director C. Caldwell was added to the board while Wanjiku Mugane was also re-elected. However, two directors, the Chairman and Richard Kemoli, who are both over 70 years, have to be endorsed each year to continue as directors.

I had thought of putting a shareholders vote over the matter in the interests of opening up the board to younger people and women but I felt that I would have been lynched. Needless to say, no shareholders objected on account of their age.

AOB
The Chairman had urged shareholders, many of whom who – in addition to proposing or second agenda items – also congratulated the board, made speeches or tried to ask questions, to refrain till after the agenda was done. One of the first was on the race with Safaricom and the Chairman assured shareholders that the company would strive to wrest back the top earnings crown from Safaricom. Early on it appeared that there would be very few questions, but here are some of them:

- Increase dividend and bonus shares: is a recurring them at all AGM’s and EABL also had its share. There were many variations of the same question, some shareholders talking of previous board who had been more generous. Chairman explained that they can’t increase dividend for a few small shareholders as everyone get an increase. It was also troubling to see a graphic in the annual reports that showed shareholders receiving 20% of payments from the company earnings while 70% goes out as taxes to the government.
- Minority interest: There’s a huge payment of profits for minority interest that doesn’t compute in the list of shareholders. MD explained that South African Breweries owned 20% of Kenya Breweries and Diageo owns 54% of UDV. KBL and UDV pay dividends to these two companies and whatever is left now goes to EABL shareholders.
- CSR: are you meeting your commitment to devote 1% of profit to corporate social responsibility? MD said CSR last year was allocated about 45m and this year will get about 80m. However, like at the Standard Chartered meeting, CSR is not a popular topic at AGM’s. One shareholder, while commending EABL and Nation media group for helping with famine relief and other disasters, they should put shareholders first - and he went on to lament how the company has never acceded to repeated shareholder wishes for more dividends or bonus shares.
- Are all shares fully issued re: ESOP? MD explained that shares for the ESOP are acquired from the market
- Why have sports sponsorships declined? Chairman replied is that they still sponsor a lot of sports such as soccer and horse racing – but the funds are disbursed from HQ for better control and monitoring.
- Missing or discontinued beer brands; MD replied that they discontinue slow moving brands like pilsner ice and senator special to put more effort into others like white cap light and citizen. He also said they would announce such decisions to the public in future.
- Hot Button: Barclays Bank It started with a misunderstood question from one shareholder who wanted dividends to paid as cash in rural areas for those who don’t have bank accounts. Chairman answered that the company had a program with Barclays bank where dividend cheques were banked without commission. One manager was there from Barclays who unsuccessfully tried to explain the issue. More questions were shouted out leading the Chairman to ask that they talk to the Barclays man after the meeting had ended. I went through this problem a few years ago – many shareholders want to cash their dividend cheques immediately - and while this is free for Barclays account holders, there’s a fee of a few hundred shillings if you don’t have a Barclays account. (also bank’s also make some easy money when new investors choose to cash their IPO refund checks immediately – for a fee of course)
- Goodies cap (pilsner), t-shirt (sengenge), lunch box (chicken, sandwich, juice, yoghurt, water, cake, apple, orange, egg)

Bank Briefs

Barclays has sweetened its’ mortgage terms

Consolidated: The deposit protection fund (DPF) will sell it’s 50% stake in Consolidated Bank back to the government –who are likely to hold on to the stake until the Bank has a profitable streak that will enable a public listing (e.g. Kenya Re) in a few years. The DPF, which guarantees funds of Kenyan bank account holders (up to 100,000 shillings), is now only allowed to invest in government securities.

Equity: As usual, is the first bank to report their September results and Kenya's fastest growing bank has doubled in almost all measures since a year ago. With assets up 42% and profits up 54% (already exceeded 2005’s) the bank is on track to reach the 1 billion shillings in pre-tax profit mark – a feat the established Nation media group only achieved this year. (See other Bank rankings)

HFCK now offers 20 year mortgage plans.

KCB has four buildings up for sale this month: Hamburg house (Tom Mboya St) for 60 million shillings, Lakhani place (Moi Ave.) 40m, Diamond Building (Moi Ave.) 30m and Loncom Building (Kenyatta Ave - Nakuru) also for 30m. deadline 10 November.

Safaricom: Is this the future of money transfers and micro finance?. Safaricom will roll out M-pesa in 2007 which was developed with CBA and Faulu Kenya. Some rough numbers from the trials: Average transaction (1,000 shilling or $14), 0.6 transactions per day, average cash deposit and transfers - 1,500 ($20), and average transfers and withdrawals were 300 shillings each.

Stanchart
- Has a new CEO: Richard Etemesi replaces Mike Hart
- To get new software: CR2's BankWorld integrated channel banking solution (source: Factiva)

Guaranteed Rent

One Kibera landslum lord has a novel way of ensuring that tenants are up to date on their payments. If you default on your rent, he sends a crew out and they remove the door of your house. Needless to say, you’ll be out looking for you landlord to pay up/settle the matter and retain possession of your household assets .

Mbagathi (No) Way

Construction of the new all-cement Mbagathi Way road is proceeding at a strange start-stop pace. Some weeks, the contractor works as fast as possible, puts down a kilometre of cement, other days there’s no work or with just a few pieces of stone moved around – and it now appears the company is reluctant to complete the road or will take as long as possible.

The road is now dangerous, especially at night, and accidents are more frequent – as some days the road is one-way, others its two-way traffic, with new routes being opened up by matatu’s as they escape the traffic jam which can stretch from Langata road to Ngong road.