M&A Moment: BritAm, Centum, other East Africa deals

Britam and Centum have had a busy few weeks.

BritAmEA (i) Had an oversubscribed bond at the NSE that saw them raise Kshs 6 billion (ii) Completed the acquisition of 99% Real Insurance - giving them access to Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania (the Competition Authority approved this deal with a caveat that they retain at least 85 of the 105 employees of Real) (iii) Established an office in Rwanda (IV) Britam will also pay about Kshs 2 billion for Equity's 25% in Housing Finance.

Centum (i) Are proposing to acquire an additional 66% shares in K-Rep Bank (ii) Are seeking shareholder approval to create a Mauritius company, set up Kings Beverage, Bakki, Shefa subsidiaries, and also ratify the acquisition of 73% of Genesis & 30% of Broll (real estate) (iii) Ceded 42% of Two Rivers venture to investors at Kshs 6 billion, (iv) Are still in the running for Rea Vipingo offering Kshs 75 per share, over the Rea bid of Kshs 70 per share to other shareholders (v) Key Centum shareholder, Chris Kirubi said he wants to be a dollar billionaire. 

Other recent deals include

Airlines

• Kenya Airways to give Tanzania's Precision Air a $10 million bailout. 
• Waiting to see who will officially be FastJet’s partner will be for their renewed push to enter the Kenyan aviation market.
• Hong Kong listed Frontier Services Group completed acquisition of 49% of Phoenix Aviation for $14 million (Kshs.1.2 billion).

Autos

• Al Futtaim Auto to compulsorily acquire the remaining 8.4% of CMC shares from minority shareholders

Banking & Finance

• Actis to acquire Compuscan, the largest independent credit bureau in Africa & run it as Credit Service Holdings with Michael Jordaan as chair.
• Diamond Trust has an ongoing rights issue to raise Kshs 3.2B ($42 million) from shareholders at Kshs 165 per share.
• Ecobank got investment bank approval in Kenya following their buyout of Iroko buyout and will target oil & gas, infrastructure & commodity deals. 
• KCB is now holding company, and is said to be interested in buying an insurance entity
• (edit) Kenyan Women Holdings will sell 25% of the shareholding of Kenya Women's Finance Trust to their 600,000 members between September and October 2014. 
• NIC Bank to have a corporate bond and rights issue during 2014
• Atlas Mara to buy 77% of Development Bank of Rwanda 
• National Bank shareholders to vote on if money from their upcoming rights issue can go to pay off preference shareholders
• Western Kenya politicians have support the creation of a new Mulembe Investment MFI bank, that will be part-funded by counties to serve 5 million people. 

Building & Cement

• Holcim is set to acquire effective control of Kenya's Bamburi Cement as part of the planned merger between Holcim and Lafarge. "The parties do not wish to see any change to the status of Bamburi as one of Kenya's leading industrial companies listed on the NSE."

Food & Beverage 

• Danone bought 40%of Kenya’s dairy processing company Brookside which had revenue of Kshs15.4 billion (€130 million) i in 2013. It was previously 90% owned by the Kenyatta family with Abraaj owning 10%. Brookside collects milk from 140,000 farmers and has 3,000 employees.
• Distell of Stellenbosch South Africa got privatization approval from the Kenya government to acquire of 26% of KWA Holdings E.A. that was previously owned by ICDC  for Kshs 860 million (about $10 million)
• Kenya Wines will also their Kshs126 millionUchumi Supermarket stake.
• See Centum (above)
• South African food company, Tiger Brands has dropped plans to acquire Kenya firms Rafiki Millers for $25m.

Health & Beauty

• Procter & Gamble merged India, the Middle East and Africa into one IMEA region to improve execution 

Hotels & Tourism

• The Kenya Competition Authority approved the acquisition of 100% of Fairview Hotel by City Lodge Hotels.
• Kempinski Hotels, Europe's oldest luxury hotel group has officially taken over Hôtel Des Milles Collines in Rwanda.

Insurance 

• See Britam above
• CIC had dropped plans for a rights issue in favour of a corporate bond
• Liberty Kenya proposed to pay a Kshs 1/= scrip dividend, but shareholders can opt for cash.  
• UAP had an oversubscribed bond that raised Kshs 3.1 billion against a target of 2B. 
• Africa Report magazine listed insurance companies as the top performers at the NSE in 2014 (see table).

Legal

• Kenyan firms Hamilton Harrison & Matthews (HHM) and Oraro & Company have announced they are to merge pending regulatory approvals.

Media & Communications

#RIPCareyEaton

• The $35 billion Publicis-Omnicom merger fell apart. The deal to combine the world’s largest advertising company was foiled by myriad difficulties, including who would run the new firm. The collapse of the deal is a win for WPP CEO Martin Sorrell, who campaigned aggressively against the merger of two of his biggest rivals.
• A few months after his big deal with One Africa Media consolidating operations in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa, co-founder, Carey Eaton, was killed in Nairobi. See some tributes to Carey Eaton. The Economist also ranked the largest internet companies in Africa and One Africa Media topped this at $80 million, followed by Mobile Planet ($15 million) and Kopo Kopo ($10 million) 
• passed away - some tributes 
• Scangroup agreed to acquire a majority stake in a pan-African firm - the Experiential Marketing Group (EXP) 
• The  Safaricom and Airtel buy out of (and split of) Yu appears to have stalled. 

Oil & Mining

• In the last year, Tullow Oil and Base Resources have paid the Kenya government $22 million and $16 million respectively . 
• Tullow received a  judgment in its favour over capital gains tax payments that Tullow had made onHeritage’s behalf to the Uganda Revenue Authority. In August 2013, Tullow received $345.8 million from Heritage in satisfaction of this High Court judgment.
• Swala Oil & Gas completed their Tanzania IPO which was oversubscribed and will now proceed to list on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (“DSE”). The placement of 13.3 million shares with 1,869 new and existing shareholders also allowed Swala to keep excess funds from Dar IPO.

Transportation & Utilities

• Transcentury sold their 34% in Rift Valley Railways to Citadel Capital for $43.7M recovering their cash, but below fair value..they cited the delayed turnaround of the railway consortium as reason for the sale
• Actis confirmed sale of its stake in Umeme for $85.5 million to 20 institutional investors including Investec and Uganda’s NSSF
• Kone Kenya acquired the business of Marryat & Scott, an elevator installation company.

Other Peoples Money

• The Australian Navy seized heroin worth $296 million from a wooden boat off  the Kenyan coast.
• The Karen Blixen house was put up for sale for $9.5 million 
• Kenya's NSSF had $600 million (Kshs 51 billion) in quoted securities as at June 2013 topped by Bamburi EABL and KCB.
• The Competition Authority fined Tusker Mattresses (Tuskys) and Ukwala supermarkets Kshs 5.3 million while allowing them to continue pursuing a supermarket consolidation deal.

Countdown to REIT’s in Kenya

This week CFCLIfe and Stanlib managers held a media briefing on Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT's) in Kenya and their possible impact on the local property scene.  REIT’s are common around the world, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria have had legislation for them, and finally, there's a Kenya law on REIT's in place (July 2013) after many years of formulation and review.

Stanlib Kenya  plan to launch REIT's in Kenya in September 2014 - and the law allows for two kinds - Income REIT’s and Develoment REIT’s. Some unique features about REIT's (which will cost between Kshs 100 - 300 million to set up with a minimum of 7 promoters) include they must distribute about 80% of profits to investors, and investors can sign on to I-REIT's for as low as Kshs 5,000.

The speakers noted that many large landlords in Kenya are quite comfortable earning incomes of less than 5% on their assets, when they could be earning quite a bit more (10% - 20%) by signing up with REIT’s - which are tax exempt and offer diversification (can invest in strong properties prisons, hospitals, malls) with more liquidity for all investors who participate in the REIT. While there's saturation as the high end of the property market, and expensive land prices are still climbing,  there are still great opportunities at the mid- and lower- residential and commercial income segments. Also the Kenya UN classification was upgraded which means that from a previous 45, over 180 countries will now have officials accredited to the UN living in Nairobi. 

Also licensed as REIT managers alongside Stanlib in April, were CIC Assets and Fusion Investments.

Answers to @ColdTusker's questions:

• The minimum amount of initial assets for an D-Reit is 100M and for a D-Reit is Kshs 300M
• D-REIT in the act is defined as "a development and construction real estate investment trust" is for sophisticated investors e.g for property developers to put up properties. They have shorter lifespans - and YES they can convert to I-Reit's which are for income from established properties. D-Reit’s can borrow up to 50% of assets, and i-Reit’s only 35%, also i-Reit’s must have 75% of portfolio in properties, and D-Reits have to have sunk 30% of their funds into property within year 1 
• Centum 2 Rivers was mentioned as the planned largest mall in Eastern Africa - with Carrefour as an anchor along with other foreign shops as main tenants (not the usual local supermarket and shops in the stores)..interesting as Carrefour seems to be withdrawing from emerging markets -  http://qz.com/231405/carrefours-india-exit-has-little-to-do-with-the-governments-reservations-on-retail/

Shares Portfolio February 2014

Compared to last quarter, the portfolio is up 0.13% while the NSE 20 share index is down by 5.25% since  November 2013.

The Stable

Barclays ↓

Bralirwa (Rwanda) ↓

Centum  (ICDCI) ↑

Diamond Trust ↑

East African Portland Cement ↓

Equity Bank ↓

KCB ↓

Kenya Airways  ↓

Kenya Oil ↓

Safaricom ↑

Scangroup ↓

Stanbic (Uganda) ↑

Unga ↑

Changes

In: None

Out: None

Increase: Kenya Airways

Decrease: Diamond Trust

Best performer: Centum (up 22% this quarter), then Diamond Trust (14%), Safaricom 6% 

Worst performer: Scangroup (down 15% this quarter), then Kenya Airways  (-14%), KCB (-10%)

Looking Forward To 

- Bank profits & dividends, though it's going to be a rough year 

- Diamond Trust rights issue.

- More M&A deals that involve listed companies like Centum.

- The downward trend echoes back to 5 years ago  when every share was down, and Diamond Trust was the best performer by only losing 8%. Since then, it is up 229%. 

Kenyan M&A

Compared to one year ago

On-Going Deals

Auto’s: - This week Al-Futtaim held a press conference to reaffirm their commitment to African market that is being spearheaded by their takeover of CMC  in Kenya.  More than anything the event was meant to showcase that the group founded in 1930,  but which few in Kenya had heard of before the deal, is a serious legitimate company (unlike shadowy China Road & Bridge that has a $3.8  billion contract to construct a standard gauge railway in Kenya.)

 

They have several car franchises 65 years of Toyota in UAE, Volvo, Honda vehicle assembly parts & service, used car business  and is also in engineering, financials services and the retail mall development business in the Middle East  and Asia

 

Al Futtaim  are long term investors will retain the CMC brand as it has a 65 year good history that will overcome the last two bad years . But they will de-list the company as they believe that being a private company will give them the flexibility to move faster and reclaim customers and brands that have been lost such as Land Rover. 

Interestingly, the opportinuity to buy CMC was presented to them by one of their banks who knew of their interest in Africa. The company then had to work very hard to meet and bring the feuding key shareholders on board to back the buyout.

EDIT Kenya’s competition authority has now approved the acquisition of 100% of CMC Holdings by Al Futtaim Auto

- Scania East Africa Limited  have taken over the purchasing, importing, assembling, fitting out, selling, servicing  of trucks, buses and chassis in Kenya that was previously carried out by Kenya Grange Vehicle Industries.

- EDIT Actis buys 36% of AutoXpress, East Africa’s leading tyre distributor, with 20 stores in Kenya and Rwanda.
- EDIT  Merali and Sameer complete buyout of 14.9% of Firestone's stake in Sameer Africa.

Banking

 

- CBA returns to Uganda after 47 years
- Fina Bank has changed over its operations in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda to GTBank East Africa after Guaranty Trust Bank concluded the acquisition of a 70% stake in Fina Bank Group for $100 million through combination of a capital injection and acquisition of shares from Fina Bank shareholders.  

- Pakistan’s MCB Bank to acquire Kenya’s Middle East Bank (via the Standard)

- EDIT Kenya’s  competition authority  has approved the acquisition of 73.35% of Genesis Kenya by Centum Investments

- EDIT Letshego Holdings  of Botswana has acquired Micro Uganda, a year after acquiring Micro Africa Ltd of Rwanda.

Food &  Beverage

- Art Caffe acquired Dormans increasing their outlets from 4 to to 11 and giving them a presence in more shopping malls like Yaya, Karen and City Mall in Mombasa where Dormans had shops.

 

However the Art Caffe were rankled by a quite in a local newspaper referring to their customers as being upmarket compared to Dorman's ones. 

  

EDIT: Kenya’s  competition authority  has now approved the acquisition of 7 coffee shops of Dormans by Art-Caffè.

- Pearl Capital partners have invested $1.5 million in KK Fresh Produce. 

EDIT Kenya’s  competition authority  has approved  the acquisition of Rafiki Millers  by Tiger Brands.

EDIT Kenya’s  competition authority  has approved the acquisition of Magic Oven Limited by Tiger Brands.

Beauty: A Netherlands-based private equity fund, TBL Mirror Fund, has bought a minority stake in a high-end Nairobi salon chain that is seeking capital to expand across East Africa.

 

EDIT 

Advertising: Kenya’s  competition authority  has approved the acquisition of additional 16.48% shareholding in Scangroup Limited by Cavendish Square Holdings BV.

Health: Kenya’s  competition authority has excluded the acquisition of 100% of Adcock Ingram Holdings Limited by CFR Inversiones SPA from the Act

Hotels: South Africa’s City Lodge acquires Kenya’s Fairview Hotel  afterFairview Hotel firm agreed to sell the outstanding 50% of the joint venture 

Insurance: Kenya’s  competition authority has approved the  acquisition of 66.38% of Phoenix of East Africa Assurance Company Limited by Mauritius Union Assurance
- EDIT  Britism American (BritAM) completes buyout of 99% of Real Insurance

Oil

- Kenya’s  competition authority  has excluded the acquisition of a 55% participating interest in Block 11A from ERHC Energy by CEPSA Kenya

- Kenya’s  competition authority  has excluded the acquisition of a 55% interest in Block 2B in Kenya from Lion Petroleum by Premier Oil 

Transport
EDIT - Precision Air  of Tanzania seeks a bailout from Kenya Airways?
EDIT - Transcentury to reduce stake in Rift Valley Railways (RVR)?

Other

India  Exits

- Ambani reports a Kshs 2 billion profit from Kenya real estate.. Ambani’s Reliance Industries in 2007 entered into a joint venture with Delta Corporation, which has developed high-end office blocks and a mid-to-low cost residential estate in Nairobi. Delta Corporation now says it plans to exit its real estate investments to venture into hospitality and gaming businesses. 

- Essar to finalise sale of its Kshs 8.5 billion Yu stake in March ..the firm says it needs the Sh8.54 billion immediately and more cash in the short term to widen its footprint in Kenya and upgrade its network from 2G to 3G.

- Essar also faces a Kshs 430 million hit in its Kenya oil refinery exit ..the government and Essar Energy Overseas are engaged in compensation talks following the Indian firm’s decision to exit the refinery.

New Deals

Agriculture: At Rea Vipingo, Bid Investments withdrew their offer and have signed up with Vania Investments who are offering a new Kshs 55 per share  bid - worth Kshs 3.3 billion ($39 million) -  for the company that will leave it listed at the NSE

 

E-Biz: 

- There's a potential change in ownership, at MyStrawberryStore 

- EDIT-  Kenya’s  competition authority  has excluded the  acquisition of 999 Ordinary shares 

of My Kenyan Network Limited by African Jobs as the two have a combined turnover of Kshs 12.6 million

Regulator Issues

Pepsi came to Kenya and took on Coke but have not made much impact. They are now saying that has Coke been unfair ..PepsiCo says that rival bottle has been curtailing its marketing campaigns geared at gaining a larger share of Kenya’s soda market in the complaint to the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK).

Synovate directors risk jail, hefty fines..Competition watchdog asks Tobiko to prosecute Ipsos-Synovate's chiefs for failure to seek regulatory approval of the firm’s acquisition of its predecessor Synovate.

In South Africa The Competition Commission plans to address anti-competitiveness between retailers despite concluding its exclusive lease agreements probe.

The investigation established that the respondents (3 supermarket chains)  were dominant in certain local markets and that they would often compel landlords not to deal with competitors (by entering into exclusive lease agreements with landlords in return for agreeing to ‘anchor’ the centre).

Jobs: Rwanda's Agaciro Development Fund is seeking an investment office. Deadline is Feb 14.

2013 Final Kenyan M&A: Brookside, Fina, Vipingo

Recent deals completed approved by the Competition of Authority of Kenya include

Banking

- The acquisition of 70% of Fina Bank (Kenya) by Guaranty Trust Bank (Nigeria).  The resulting Institution shall be called Guaranty Trust Bank Kenya Limited.

-  The acquisition of the voting & veto rights of ETC Group (Mauritius) by Standard Chartered Private Equity Mauritius, Prif Afrivest, and CSSAF

Food

The acquisition of all business and assets of Buzeki Dairy by Brookside Dairy

Exceptions

The Competition Authority excluded the acquisition of the mobile money agency business of PEP Intermediaries from the provisions of the Competition Act as the merger would not affect competition negatively and the combined turnover of merging entities of  KSh. 600 million ($7 million) was below the required merger threshold for mandatory notification.

The Authority also excluded the acquisition of the 55% of participating interest in Block 2B in Kenya by Premier Oil Investments from Lion Petroleum from the provisions of the Competition Act as the transaction entities fall under an excluded sector  and the merger would not affect competition negatively.

Others Transfers

The public transport business of  Wuthering Heights Travels, in Githunguri, has been sold and transferred to Da Bridge Logistics Company. 

Other Deal Making

The year ended with a still unresolved three0way battle for Rea Vipingo which is listed at the Nairobi Stock Exchange and was trading at about Kshs 28 ($0.32) per share.

- First was an offer by the REA Trading a UK group comprising the largest shareholders in the company buy out the minority shareholders at Kshs 40 per share and delist the company. -  A few days later there was a counter-bid by Centum Investments who offered to buy out other shareholders at Kshs 50 per share and have Vipingo remain listed at the NSE 

- Then there was a third offer for the company, this one by Bid Investments - offering Kshs 55 per share, and also with a declared intent to leave the company listed at the NSE. 

The attraction of Vipingo appears to be its land holdings, and a trend of delisting of companies at the Nairobi Securities Exchange remains a sore point with minority shareholders of companies – and the may tip the balance of offers,

The Unquiet African blog has more on the Vipingo battle, and also speculates on future M&A deals at companies like Airtel, Safaricom, Wananchi and Kenya Railways.

Longhorn at the NSE

 

On May 30, book publishing company Longhorn Publishers listed 58.5 million shares at the Nairobi Shares Exchange (NSE) at a price of Kshs. 14 per share, becoming the 59th  company on the exchange.  While they are said to be the first publisher on the exchange, they are not the first new media /creative company at the NSE.

Longhorn is 35% owned by  Centum Investments and the current NSE MD, Peter Mwangi, mentioned how he had sparked the process of leading Longhorn to list when he was the MD of Centum (formerly ICDCI)  as he gad seen that the company which had good growth, business plans, and management could end up as a company that could list at the exchange.

Longhorn is mainly a school books publisher with school publishing interests in Kenya (government is the largest book buyer) , and has  subsidiaries in Uganda and Tanzania (never been profitable), and their titles are now distributed in Rwanda, Malawi, and the Chairman also some titles are now sold via amazon kindle.

Centum and the Longhorn Chairman, Francis Nyammo in total own about 79% of the company and have undertaken not to reduce their combined shareholding to below 51% for the next two years.

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.

Kengen & other Nairobi Bonds

Lots of questions abound about whether its time to invest in bonds at the Nairobi stock exchange. From late last year when Mabati Rolling Mills launched a bond, 2009 has really been the year of the bond with the clincher being the successful Kenya government infrastructure bond of February 2009.

Now ongoing now is the Kengen PIBO for which Kainvestor reviews the prospectus. It offers a 12.5% and the minimum subscription is 100,000 shillings (~$1,316)

Next expected next is a Safaricom bond, a Centum bond ( 2 billion), and more tranches from CFC Stanbic and Barclays. It’s quite a turnaround from 2007 when companies like Athi River Mining, Safaricom and Celtel Kenya (now Zain) all redeemed /repaid bond investors at a time of low interest rates.

Track all the corporate bonds at the at the NSE daily bond report and these include East African development Bank, Barclays, Faulu Kenya, Mabati, PTA Bank, Athi River Mining, Sasini and CFC Stanbic

Buy bonds directly from stockbroker agents, but if still unsure of the process, consider investing through bonds funds such as those from Old Mutual Kenya and Dyer & Blair Investment Bank - Kachwanya reports that investors can even access the Kengen Bond at ½ the prescribed price – paying just Kshs 50,000 (~$650) instead of the subscription minimum of 100,000.

Stocks versus bonds? in the long run, as shown by this stockskenya thread, shares are likely to out-perform bonds – even the generous 12% Kengen bond.

EDIT also on offer is Uchumi Bond/10% convertible shareholders’ debenture is on. Press reports say it was valued at 12 shillings each by KPMG and is available at a discount of 10/= to shareholders of the company. The funds raised will be used to restructure the balance sheet, which shoudl lead to the end the receivership, and re-listing of the company’s shares at the NSE.

Uchumi Financial Results

published by Specialized Receiver Manager – September 2009

Centum seeks Carbacid

and other Bank Twits

Twitter is a micro-blogging tool that is relly nifty for doing mini-posts, forwards and other remarks that (are on any subject) and are maybe not worthy of a full blog post. Here’s a summary of my week on Twitter:

- @louizah Zain Vuka has ended? Please confirm
- @NTV showing IFC-funded docu on women entreprenurs - meaning manu-arsenal will be on tape delay - WHY? next @NTV ditched a static-filled channel & skipped their 'half time' piece to present second half live, on a much clearer signal! Kudos
- Sports journo era over? Player asks for trade on blog team obliges on Twitter player thanks fans on Facebook http://tinyurl.com/d967eu
- blog post Why Safaricom should spin off MPesa http://bit.ly/gYZ86
- The Central Bank of Kenya reports have become incomprehensible B.S
- Upgraded Safaricom Investor relations page has media and CEO briefings http://bit.ly/VBZ2f
- Tanzania will now recognize Kenya manufacturers mark of quality http://bit.ly/USZHg
- Delta Air round-trip intro fares from Nairobi include (ex-tax) $650-NY/DC, $975-ATL/Chi/ Dallas, $1124-LA/SF and $1440-Detroit
- @kahenya @jamesmurua likes Riviera, which has good crowd and facilities, but beer is pricey and the place is a fire-trap
- So Joe Biden met Nairobi mayor Majiwa in chicago. There, thats the end of the joke
- Safaricom CEO says M-Pesa not yet profitable http://bit.ly/TDV8D
- @leofaya says Kenyan promoters are killing Facebook http://bit.ly/zBHXB
- Today's pavement uprooting is sponsored by access kenya - as the fibre optic railway is laid around Nairobi
- @Archermishale sports conspiracy goes that where a sport wants to sway a big game, they put in a low-quality ref, but didn't happen on Wednesday
- Safaricom partners with Kenyas' largest bank KCB http://bit.ly/J4l92
- Kenya budget saga ($115 million) blamed on a typo - Quote ODB "N___ please!" http://tinyurl.com/p5hoyo
- blog post: two bank shareholder meetings same day same building same time http://bit.ly/86lNq
- @pinkm so you can only use debit, but not credit card to buy amazon books from KE? Interesting
- Ethiopian Air applies to fly from Nairobi to Amsterdam and Nairobi –Liege (Belgiu
- Land spin: Could there be a link between migingo island and the kampala land kenya got from Uganda military?
- If MTN buy Yu or Access Kenya, they will have to negotiate with MTN matatu society for use of name
- blog post Its Our Turn to Eat (is credit card worthy) http://bit.ly/YnriQ
- NMG 2008 report gives prominent mention of new digital division, Making-Nation DVD and Zuqka portal http://tinyurl.com/qkcphc
- Centum applies to the CMA to buy Kshs.350m of Carbacid shares and be largest shareholder of the Nairobi listed (but suspended) company
- Senator cards advise customers to only upload to https, not http sites. It's rare to find credit company giving card advice
- From Mars Group: Parliament's Report on the Kenya Budget inconsistencies http://blog.marsgroupkenya....

Missing the Centum party

(EDIT: Centum's official Press release about the AGM)

When I last looked at Centum, company was in the news due to CEO exit and a postponed AGM and postponed dividend.

Now it appears the AGM took place yesterday: I did not attend as I (i) had sold my shares (ii) did not see invitation document before today (iii) forgot all about Centum AGM

From today's reading, Centum sent out an annual report with updated sections but still the financial accounts for nine months to March 2008: it now includes mentions of departures of Isaac Awuondo (September 08), and CEO Peter Mwangi (October 2008) which coincided with the postponed AGM, and also welcomes on board new directors - Kibuga Karithi (September 08) , Imtiaz khan (November 2008 - Cassias capital partners) and new CEO James Mworia (appointed October 2008, joined board December 2008) who came on board a week after Mwangi left - for greener pastures where he’s now the CEO of the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE)

No agenda: The invitation letter dated on 1st December 2008 mentiones a shareholder presentation woudl take place on Thursday at 10, followed by the AGM at 11 - but no meeting agenda was contained.

The report also states that the (Centum) board believes that annual general meting provides an appropriate forum for investors to communicate with the board and encourages participation

Dividend day A company statement from October had mentioned that dividend would be paid at the January 14 AGM

So what happened?

Anonymous Comments posted yesterday include

Anonymous said... You gave the Centum AGM a skip???!! Here I was looking forward to a post on that.
Part of the drama was that the company's attorney denied a proxy audience on the grounds that co. law does not expressly provide for proxies to be heard at an AGM. I wonder how corporate s/holders are supposed to voice their concerns at AGMs in that case?
Interestingly, a special agenda to have two directors (the Chairman and Chris Kirubi) removed was in the cards; no need to wait for the result of that coz its sure to flop since their stake in the co is significant.

Anonymous (New CEO) MainaT - I think he's off to a good start. He managed the anti- C.K s/holder sentiment as best as these things can be managed i.e. by requesting the co. attorney to give an (erroneous) interpretation of co law to diffuse the anti C.K sentiments that were beginning to spiral out of ctrl.

Anonymous said... Centum don't have an in-house co. attorney. They must have hired whoever was turning proxies at the door. Their co. sec. is not attorney. Curiously, did they send the annual reports without the proxy forms? Extremely strange. Very strange. CMA should take a peek at this. Some one should write a stinker, otherwise, minority views will continue to be suppressed.

any more comments? and was the dividend paid or just declared?

Toxic Centum Last time Centum was in the news their CEO had departed, and Discount stockbrokers had collapsed. This time the news cycle is topped by the Triton fuel scam and the departures of the Chairman of the Capital markets Authority Chege Waruingi and Kenya Airports Authority CEO George Muhoho - (more from "airport expert" - Coldtusker )