It's been over five years, since a wave of new media stocks appeared at the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) including Access Kenya Safaricom, and Scangroup. They are all in the news this month, but for different reasons.
For Access Kenya, the deadline for shareholders to vote on a takeover by Dimension Data was extended by a day due to a national Holiday last week, However, Dimension Data just announced that they have received acceptances from 75% of shareholders and approval the Competition Authority of Kenya and will now proceed with the takeover which will leading to a de-listing of Access Kenya at the NSE.
Safaricom shares seem to have stabilized in the Kshs 7-8 price range after spending quite a bit of time at Kshs 3/=, well blow the IPO price of Kshs 5/= in 2008. This disillusioned a lot of retail shareholders who bought their shares hoping to quadruple them when they listed, but then had to sell them at a loss. The company has since weathered many changes, but remains the market leader in Kenya, thanks largely to M-Pesa and the floundering of their rivals (Orange, Airtel and Essar).
Scangroup got an investment from the WPP, in 2008 who gained a controlling interest for about $18 million. The shares traded at about Kshs 72, and while they have lagged other shares this year, this is still a tremendous gain from the IPO price from Kshs 10.45.
This week, WPP announced, that they would seek to increase their stake to just over 50% in a deal worth about $95 million. This will be done through a combination of cash, new shares and exchange of partnerships in joint companies (Ogilvy & Mather, Ogilvy Africa, Ogilvy (in Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius) Millard Brown (East Africa, and Mauritius), and Hill & Knowlton (East Africa and Africa) which will become full subsidiaries of Scangroup over the next one year.
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