KA-INVESTOR
The Safaricom IPO in Kenya was the last stroke that broke the horse back. In this ‘mother of all public offers’, all and sundry were invited to participate including some dubious ‘foreign investors’ who dumped shares at first instance of a profit. Tanzanians were not allowed by the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) to buy into this IPO and they are happy now that they didn’t do so. For Ugandans who risked to invest in it painful results followed and some of them have sworn never to invest in Kenyan offers, while some legislators who now want a law passed to stop Ugandans from investing in Kenya and vice versa.
It seems we are reversing on the pledge of having an East African Securities Market any time soon. Although Kenya firms such as KCB Group are will and in the process of cross-listing, joining others like KQ and Jubilee Insurance which have already done so, our partners in regional bourse integration seem to have sinister ideas of the same process.
Last year I had mentioned of some cross border IPO’s that were expected to materialize but were delayed due to reasons well known to the offer advisors (including Dyer & Blair). Eventually only the NMB IPO in Tanzania came to pass – and Kenyans were kept out, with the following impressive results:
NMB IPO results and performance
The NMB offer was over subscribed by 300% with Tanzanians forking out over Tsh.189 billion ≈ Ksh.11.8 billion for the offer that was expected to raise Tsh.63 billion ≈ Ksh.3.94 billion only (Tsh.48 billion ≈ Ksh.3 billion or 76.2% for Tanzanian investors and the rest for the bank’s employees). Despite the listing offering the banks existing 20,264 shareholders an exit mechanism, the huge appetite for NMB shares was carried forward to the DSE when they started trading last week on Friday with the counter jumping 70% to close at Tsh.1,020 ≈ Ksh.63.75 from the listing price of Tsh.600 ≈ Ksh.37.50 per share with a minimum of 100 shares per applicant (Ksh.37,500 – which I think is reasonable pricing compared to the Safaricom disaster). The share is expected to continue increasing in price, as its demand is so high, given the prospects that NMB was the most profitable and biggest bank in Tanzania's banking industry and is considered undervalued at the current price.
NICL IPO (Uganda)
This IPO has been postponed three times now since the last time I wrote about it. I’m still waiting to see if Kenyans and Rwandans will be allowed to participate in it after the recent development. Tanzanians are technically out of this one.
Salute to Miriam Makeba
A minute of silence for a fallen hero.
REST IN PEACE MAMA AFRICA.
