Friday, December 17, 2010

How is the GOP’s opposition to Obama’s decision affecting USA?

A Guest Post by Jason Holmes

The Grand Old Party or the GOP very commonly known had asked President Obama to fire his entire economic advisors because they had failed to take out recession and job loss problems out of the country. The decisions taken by Barrack Obama are criticized every now and then by the GOP. Take a look at how the compromises are forced in to the decisions of Obama and how it in turn is devastating the country.

Republicans against the financial reform by Obama

Barrack Obama’s decision to sign a bill for financial security in the country is jeopardized by the strong opposition from the GOP. The decision lies in the regulation of derivates which are financial instruments and their value depends on the underlying assets such as mortgages or stocks. But there is also the risk that these assets can sink giving rise to losses and other financial crisis. 41 Republicans are against any bill by the Democrats including this bill. It’s predicted that the regulation of derivates market is quite risky and will badly affect the small businesses as well as community banks. But even if there were some of the well-known financial crises in USA due to the regulation of risky derivates, it can also reduce the loss and produce huge profits if the underlying assets don’t sink.

Obama fears for the failure of bipartisan prospects

In the new reports it has been recorded that Obama is not against a lot of decisions of the Republicans but fears that he won’t be able to take other decisions freely if the GOP runs the House. He wants to make some changes in education and energy-related decisions that have been overlooked. He fears that if GOP comes into power, he won’t be able to make any decisions regarding foreign policies even. His bipartisan cooperation prospects are looking bleak due to the GOP opposition at every step. But if given a chance, Obama’s decision may work for the betterment of the country but due to the problems in the House due to the Republicans, public is showing less interest in any decisions. Since the term of Barrack Obama started in 2008, Republicans have shown very little interest in working with Obama or the Democrats in the whole.

GOP create problems for Obama for building foreign relations

Obama has taken decisions to bring US troops from Afghanistan back to the country by July, 2011. But Republicans oppose this decision and say that it’s arbitrary and that war commanders shouldn’t withdraw forces just like that. Obama’s plan to improve relations with other countries such as Cuba and Iran is also not accepted by the Republicans. They fear that if there is no border control, US may have to face another war since the World War II. But against the Republican concepts, Obama’s decision may mean peace with other countries and no war.

USA and EU relations affected if GOP comes to power

As per the latest reports, it’s foreseen that the relations between America and European countries may come to a halt when the GOP comes into power. Obama’s decision to have good relations with European countries especially Turkey will be highly affected and opposed by the Republicans. If the New Strategic Arms Control Treaty with Russia is signed by Obama and the Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, it may lower limits of both the nations’ nuclear arsenals. But the Republicans are not sure whether or not Russia would be fair in its decisions to be fair.

Whether Barrack Obama or the Republicans take decisions, they should always use a fool proof plan so that it positively affects the country. In their fight to stay in power, both the Democrats and the Republicans are overlooking the public interest. The downfall of the big economic countries led to the financial crisis. They must look for reforms to improve the countries financial status and create more jobs.

About the author: Jason Holmes is a regular writer with debtcc community and is also a contributory writer with other financial sites. His expertise is woven around various aspects of the debt industry and with his e-books he tries to impart to people the different situations and simple solutions to get out of difficult situations. Some of his works include e-books like ‘Credit Score The Quintessential Therapy for a Happy Pocket’, Take Creditors and Collection Agencies to Small Claims Court’ and, My Story- From Depression To a Smile’.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Investor Choice: December 2010

December is traditionally a slow investment month in Kenya, but not so this year with so many investment offers from a variety of sectors

Recap

- Bralirwa IPO is ongoing for Rwanda’s largest beer company. Nairobi stockbrokers who are facilitating the cross-border deal include Dyer & Blair, Faida, African Alliance and CFC Stanbic

- Deacons set out to raise Kshs 800 million ($10 million) in November. They extended the deadline to early December, and came up slightly short at Kshs 700 million which is still commendable for a low marketed company in a competitive industry with no immediate listing plans

- I&M Bank had a private placement to raise about 2.4 billion ($30 million) and is said to be past the mark

- The Kenya Power & Lighting Company - KPLC Rights issue set out to raise almost Kshs 10 billion ($125 million) in a combination share split, tights issue, government shareholding restructuring. It runs till December 22, but for new shareholders deadline is December 15 and is 50% underwritten with Centum and Equity bank.

- A second tranche of the Kshs 12 billion Safaricom bond program which aimed to raise Kshs 4.5 billion ($56 million) closed yesterday, and announcement is to be done today - (PDF)

- Airline Investors – away from retail investors we have the rarefied world of institutional investors and buccaneers in the aviation space in Africa

- (Via Flight Africa Blog) Jetlink expanding flights to (Asmara) Eritrea while Fly540 is to soon launch operations in Angola and Ghana
- Kenya Airways resumes flights to (Rome) Italy on December 16 which is its fourth European destination
- Recently, Rwanda Air launched flights from Rwanda to Dubai via Mombasa.
- Yemenia resuming flights to Kenya.
- East African, (who may or may not be in business) are promoting flights from Nairobi to (Hargeisa) Somaliland for $620
- And helicopter leasing is getting popular in Kenya, even at rates of $2,000 per hour.

Monday, December 06, 2010

2010 Kenya Bank Rankings Part II

Comparing to last year’s Top 10 list.

I&M Bank: Sits, at number eleven, for the year, just outside the top 10, but made more profit than two of the top banks . I&M had an exciting year, with a November rights issue targeting to raise Kshs 2.4 billion ($30 million); they also launched an e-commerce platform, bought stakes in banks in Mauritius and Tanzania and got investment funding from Proparco & DEG.

10. Diamond Trust (2009 rank 10): Assets of Kshs 58.2 billion ($727 million) and nine month profits of Kshs 2.3 billion ($29 million) – had growth across the board of 30% compared to a year ago and with a good income outlook and very low NPA. Expanding to Burundi while other banks have headed to Rwanda, and Chairman stepped down to take up similar post at the revived Air Uganda.

9. Citibank Kenya (2009: 7): Assets of 63.9 billion ($798 million) and nine month profits of 2.15 billion ($27 million). A quiet year for the bank but ramped up in Q3 this year and that will impact year-end numbers, which were flat before that. MD Ade Ayeyemi moved on to other bank operations, and the bank has been unable to shake off local stockbroker allegations that they are holding Safaricom IPO refunds from investors since 2008

8. Commercial Bank of Africa (2009: 9): Assets of 65 billion ($813 million) and nine-month profits of 1.9 billion ($23.7 million) . A quiet year for the bank which has grown by about 40% since a year ago, but which will soon have to raise compliance capital from its shareholders.

7. National Bank of Kenya (2009: 8): Assets of 67.4 billion ($842 million) and nine month profits of 1.9 billion ($24.8 million). And has ramped up lending including mortgages and seen improved profits. The replacement of long serving CEO is up in the air are Government plans to privatize the bank with plans shifting toward private investor as opposed to offering more shares to the public

6. CFC-Stanbic (2009: 6): Assets of Kshs 104 billion ($1.3 billion) and nine month profits of 1.5 billion ($18.8 million). The sleeping giant created by the merger of two mid size banks is still treading, and though with improved profit, they are still the lowest of the top 10 banks.

5. Equity Bank(2009: 5): Assets of 129 billion ($1.61 billion) and profits of 6.8 billion ($84 million) . For the second year slightly reduced growth to 40 - 50% not the 100% of years past. The bank had a shift in direction towards an agency branch model using mobile phones to reach its 5 million plus customers, and after the rapid growth of m-kesho ( a partnership with Safaricom,), they have in the last two months also signed on with Orange and Essar, tying up 3 of the 4 Telco’s with mobile money.

Diversification has been a mixed bag, with good results from Sudan and M-kesho, but not so (yet) with Uganda, investment banking, and Housing Finance, which while initially unwelcome it appears that HF shareholders would now welcome a merger. Still, this could be the year they clinch the highest profit crown in the Kenya banking sector.

4. Standard Chartered (2009: 3): Assets of 134.6 billion ($1.68 billion) and profits of Kshs 6.1 billion ($77 million) in nine months. Had an over-subscribed rights issue and took over the custody business that Barclays sold in Africa. They make good money from corporate loans and from government securities – they have almost as much paper ($650 million) as they do in customer loans.

3. Cooperative Bank ( 2009: 4): Assets of 141.1 billion ($1.76 billion) and nine-month profits of 4.3 billion ($53.7 million) . overall growth of ~40% with group assets about the same, and diversification has included buying stake in CIC insurance, stock broking and have talked about going into South Sudan and other East Africa countries

2. Barclays(2009: 1): Assets of 177 billion (2.2 billion), with nine month profit of 7 billion ($87 million). This big bank has nowhere to go, with growth of 5% from a year ago, can they buy up some smaller banks? They shed their Africa custody business to standard chartered and got into an m-pesa banking partnership belatedly after pushing their own mobile money platform for two years.
Site of planned KCB new HQ building, opp Equity Bank Centre, Upper Hill Nairobi
1 KCB (2009: 2): Assets of Kshs 218.2 billion ($2.72 billion) and nine month profit of 6.39 billion ($80 million). Had a rights issue earlier in the year, that raised $156 million and they plan to put up a new headquarters in upper hill. But with total group assets of 244 billion, the bank was third in profit behind Barclays and Equity after Q3.

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Investing in Africa Moment

Legatum Africa Awards: Three Kenyan companies - Biodeal Laboratories (generic drug manufacturer), Craft Silicon (financial software developer) and Mellech Engineering (construction & engineering), have been selected as finalists in 2010 Africa Awards for entrepreneurship.

They are competing for $350,000 in fund prizes, with a grand prize of US$ 100,000 and five other prizes of US$ 50,000 each. The other finalists in the top 10 are Malcom-Ezindaleni Hydraulics (SA) NTR Technology (Botswana), Planbuild (Uganda) Sigma Electric ( Ethiopia) Steel & Tube Industries (Uganda), Tutuka Software ( SA) and Wilkins Engineering (Ghana) – who were also shortlisted from more than 2,700 entries.

Legatum, a privately owned investment group and Omidyar Network, a philanthropic investment firm, organized the awards, who's winners will be announced on December 6 in Nairobi.

Agriculture Equity: The African Agriculture Fund, a private equity fund closed on US$ 135 million of funding in November 2010. The funds will be invested in the agriculture value chain from primary production to processing at $20 million per portfolio company.

The Fund also has a dedicated SME sub-fund and a technical assistance facility of 10 million euros, to support out grower schemes in large companies and business development services in SMEs.

Transparency Equity: Late in October, Omidyar and Hivos created the Africa Transparency and Technology Initiative (ATTI) - a fund that will support technology-driven initiatives that give citizens the tools to hold their governments to account. Omidyar Network will invest up to $2 million and Hivos will administer the fund.

Diaspora Fund: The Enkare Innovators Fund was launched and is seeking US$850 Million from Diaspora for investments in Eastern, Southern & Northern Africa with early focus on Kenya, Tunisia, Egypt and South Africa. This is via a private placement that will run from January to July 2011 and is promoted by Cauave Deaa Et Al Capital Partners

Silicon Valley Visits: The Kenya ICT Board will host a team from I/O ventures, comprising entrepreneurs & founders will from Silicon Valley who will visit Nairobi on December 14 & 15 and who are seeking young ICT entrepreneurs to mentor.
Mombasa housing development
Impact Investing: Impact Investments are a new asset class as per a report being launched this week in Nairobi, London and New York - by the Rockefeller Foundation, Global impact investing network, and J P Morgan.

These refer to investments that have an intended purpose of positive social or environmental good besides a financial return – and probably what Acumen Fund have been referring to as patient capital.
- Impact Investments are primarily debt or equity, and are investments not philanthropy investments
- They studied 1,100 investments and found that about 500 were less than $500,000, and only 35 were more than $10 million
- Impact investments are founds in sectors like agriculture, water, housing, education, health, energy and financial services (micro-finance is the most mature sub-sector)
- There are now metrics, tools, ratings, conferences – all devoted to impact investing and how to measure non-financial impact; One benchmark called IRIS (based on IFRS) and others are Pulse and GIIRS . Currently impact investments are measured primarily by investors own proprietary systems, or by a mix some investor goals such as job creation, asset accumulation, or energy efficiency
- The report has a robust outlook for the sector and concludes that there are potential impact investing requirements over the next 10 years of between $400 billion and $1 trillion, with potential profit of $183 billion to $667 billion, and with the bulk of these to be found in the urban housing sector.

Further Reading

Invent for Mobile: CGAP article which asks how viable companies in mobile health and mobile money can attract VC funding and interest.

Large Private Equity: FT article - about private equity in Africa by Andrea Bohnstedt (@andreabohnstedt), the publisher of Ratio Magazine

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

2010 Kenya Bank Rankings Part I

Ranked by total assets at September 2010 and compared to 2009 rank (in brackets)

--missing is Southern credit (32 last year) which was bought by Equatorial in 2010
43 (43) Jamii Bora *formerly City Finance
42 (42) Dubai
41 (--) UBA Kenya *new
40 (39) Middle East
39 (41) Oriental
38 (40) Paramount Universal
37 (37) Credit
36 (38) Transnational
35 (34) Habib Bank
34 (36) First Community
33 (31) Victoria
32 (33) Fidelity
31 (25) K-Rep
30 (28) Guardian
29 (26) Habib AG Zurich
28 (27) Gulf African
27 (30) Consolidated
26 (23) ABC
25 (29) Giro
24 (24) Development Bank of Kenya
23 (35) Equatorial *merged with Southern Credit
22 (22) Fina
21 (19) India
20 (20) Family Bank
19 (18) Ecobank
18 (16) Imperial
17 (21) Chase
16 (17) Bank of Africa
15 (15) Housing Finance
14 (14) Baroda
13 (13) Prime
12 (11) NIC
11 (12) Investment & Mortgages

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