|
Friday 27th of February 2015 |
Morning Africa |
Register and its all Free.
If you are tracking the NSE Do it via RICHLIVE and use Mozilla Firefox as your Browser. 0930-1500 KENYA TIME Normal Board - The Whole shebang Prompt Board Next day settlement Expert Board All you need re an Individual stock.
The Latest Daily PodCast can be found here on the Front Page of the site http://www.rich.co.ke |
read more |
|
Black hole as massive as 12 billion suns found, could change theories of how universe began Africa |
A giant black hole, as massive as 12 billion suns, has been found by astronomers and seems to be growing far too fast.
The black hole is not the biggest that is known, but is far bigger than scientist would expect to be at its age. It got to its huge size 875 million years after the big bang - which scientists wouldn't expect to happen, since black holes grow as they age and eat other gas and stars that surround them.
Scientists can only see it at that age - 12.8 billion years ago, and 6 per cent of the age of the current universe - because it is so far away. They also can't look at it directly, because the power of its gravity sucks everything including light into it - but the team that found it saw it by spotting a quasar, an object that gets lit up as it's heading into the black hole. In a paper reporting their finding, published in Nature and reported in National Geographic, the scientists behind the study say that the finding could change our understanding of how black holes form. It is thought that black holes begin when the first stars collapsed, about 100 million years after the big bang, and that they swelled after that.
I am looking forward to being in London this year I really am.
|
read more |
|
I Wonder LYRICS Kanye West Africa |
[Hook] And I wonder if you know What it means, what it means And I wonder if you know What it means to find your dreams
[Verse 1] I've been waiting on this my whole life These dreams be waking me up at night You say I think I'm never wrong You know what, maybe you're right, aight
[Verse 3] And I'm back on my grind A psychic read my lifeline Told me in my lifetime My name would help light up the Chicago skyline And that's why I'm Seven o'clock, that's primetime
|
read more |
|
Isis murderer Mohammed Emwazi is Londoner on MI5's radar since 2009 Law & Politics |
As the world's media descended on the addresses where Emwazi was raised - ranging from an £800,000 mansion block apartment in Maida Vale to his last-known address on a gritty west London estate - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/jihadi-john-was-a-computer-programmer-known-to-mi5-for-at-least-four-years-10073607.html
The 26-year-old, who had moved to England at the age of six, first came to the attention of MI5 in 2009. He was detained with two others while travelling to Tanzania for a safari holiday. Intelligence officers believed it was a cover for an attempt to join the al-Shabaab terror group in Somalia. His week-long detention in Africa, apparently on British orders, and questioning by an MI5 officer were revealed by The Independent in 2010 - although he then identified himself by a different name.
Putin said Kiev's decision of cutting gas supplies to Donbass " looks like genocide" http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/europe/europe/2015-02/26/c_127518147.htm
"The speed of making and implementing decisions is much faster on the Russian side and that obviously puts Russia at an advantage," she said by phone on Feb. 24. "The pain can be inflicted faster than the remedy can be administered."
Russia is damaging Ukraine's economy faster than the U.S. and its European allies can provide support. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-26/putin-scores-victory-over-ukraine-allies-in-bond-market-collapse
That's the conclusion of investors, who have sent the price of Ukrainian bonds to record lows even as the country awaits $17.5 billion of emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund. Its currency, the hryvnia, has lost about a half of it value this month, forcing the central bank to tighten capital controls to keep money from fleeing the country.
As a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine pits Russia against its Cold War-era foes, the conflict is also playing out in the trading rooms of Wall Street banks and hedge funds. Investors trying to anticipate the next move of rebels backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin are also weighing the ability of the Kiev government's allies to counter the Kremlin's economic maneuvers as Ukraine seeks to restructure its $16 billion of foreign-currency debt.
"It is clear the country has a powerful neighbor intent on destabilizing it, while the West simply doesn't care enough about Ukraine to do anything with significant costs attached," Paul McNamara, a money manager who helps oversee $6.3 billion of debt including Russian bonds at GAM UK Ltd., said by phone from London on Feb. 25. "I don't think Ukrainian bonds and the hryvnia are especially cheap."
Conclusions
On the ground Putin has pounded Kiev. but the Financial Warfare that the C21st Oil Warfare Specialist @BarackObama launched on him has been brutal and just as ''red in tooth and claw''
|
read more |
|
The rise of fascism is again the issue By John Pilger Law & Politics |
Fascism is preserved as history, as flickering footage of goose-stepping blackshirts, their criminality terrible and clear. Yet in the same liberal societies whose war-making elites urge us never to forget, the accelerating danger of a modern kind of fascism is suppressed; for it is their fascism.
Like the fascism of the 1930s and 1940s, big lies are delivered with the precision of a metronome: thanks to an omnipresent, repetitive media and its virulent censorship by omission.
Take the catastrophe in Libya. In 2011, Nato launched 9,700 "strike sorties" against Libya, of which more than a third were aimed at civilian targets. Uranium warheads were used; the cities of Misurata and Sirte were carpet-bombed. The Red Cross identified mass graves, and Unicef reported that "most [of the children killed] were under the age of ten".
The public sodomising of the Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi with a "rebel" bayonet.
|
read more |
|
Fed's Bullard sees spring price rebound, summer rate hike: CNBC International Trade |
The Federal Reserve should make a change to its policy statement next month that would allow it to monitor inflation readings through the spring and then hike interest rates some time in the summer, a top Fed official said on Thursday.
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said on CNBC the U.S. central bank should drop the word "patient" from its statement at a March 17-18 meeting, in order "to provide optionality ... going forward."
"If we take it out, then we can move at any of the meetings during the summer," he added. "If expected inflation goes back to more normal levels then I'd have confidence that actual inflation would follow behind. Through the spring here we'll have to see evidence of that."
|
read more |
|
Currency Markets at a Glance WSJ World Currencies |
Euro 1.1211 Dollar Index 95.14 The dollar index eased 0.2 percent to 95.130 .DXY, inching away from a one-month high of 95.357 set on Thursday. The dollar index had rallied 1.1 percent on Thursday, bringing it close to the more than 11-year high of 95.481 hit on Jan. 23. Japan Yen 119.27 Swiss Franc 0.9503 Pound 1.5436 Aussie 0.7795 India Rupee 61.825 South Korea Won 1100.74 Brazil Real 2.9087 Egypt Pound 7.6310 South Africa Rand 11.5446
|
read more |
|
12-JAN-2015 The euro/dollar exchange rate is headed to parity and even lower in 2015. World Currencies |
The euro/dollar exchange rate is headed to parity and even lower in 2015. I know Goldman Sachs has a parity call for euro/dollar in 2016, but I think the unravelling will happen in 2015 and a lot more quickly.
The economic blowback from the frozen conflict in Ukraine with Russia has exacted a price, as well. Economics and geopolitics are more intertwined than ever before. If European bond yields - they are at record all-time lows - are the 'signal in the noise', then this means Europe is in danger of a major 'death-spiral'.
|
read more |
|
09-FEB-2015 King Dollar World Currencies |
ON Friday, the United States released its typically market-moving non-farm payroll numbers. After interrogating the released data, I realised that the US posted the largest three-month payroll gain going back to 1997.
That was plain another era in 1997 and I looked up the music from that year to better anchor that period in my mind. I discovered that Toni Braxton's 'Unbreak my heart', Biggy's 'Hypnotise' and Elton John's 'Candle in the wind' - in remembrance of the late Princess of Wales, Diana Frances - were the big hits that year.
|
read more |
|
Ghana clinches three-year IMF funding deal worth $940 million Africa |
Africa Department division chief Joel Toujas-Bernate said the short-term priority was to stabilise Ghana's economy.
"We are confident that the programme ... will enable the authorities to achieve their objectives," he told Reuters.
"We see the prospects at somewhat of a lower level of growth than we have seen in the last four of five years because indeed this period of large spending through large public borrowing now will not be able to continue," he said in an interview.
Conclusions
@JDMahama dialled up Madam @Lagarde at the @IMFNews
|
read more |
|
Look at Ghana where the president @JDMahama claims he is looking for a 'home-grown' solution to a situation of his making and frankly there isn't one 2 JUNE 2014 Africa |
Ivory Coast is poised to raise $1 billion on Tuesday in a deal that was widely seen as a test for African bond issuance after a recent slide in oil prices led to a wobble in African debt. http://blogs.wsj.com/frontiers/2015/02/24/ivory-coasts-1b-bond-sale-attracts-4b-in-orders/
The results were conclusive: Investors placed some $4 billion of orders for Ivory Coast's bonds.
"It's a pretty positive signal that the market is absorbing that [amount of bonds]," said Mahan Namin, a fund manager at London-based Insparo Asset Management, which has $110 million invested in Africa.
The bonds will have an average maturity of 12 years, with three equal annual repayments starting in 2026. The bond will yield 6.625%, according to one of the banks working on the deal.
Diageo Plc, the maker of Guinness beer and Johnnie Walker whisky, wants Africa to account for 20 percent of its sales after investing more than $1 billion in the continent over the last five years, Chief Executive Officer Ivan Menezes said. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-27/diageo-s-ceo-menezes-sees-africa-rising-to-20-of-global-sales
The ambition to make the African operation "one of the pillars of the next decade" and boost takings from the current share of 13 percent will play out in growing nations such as Ethiopia, Menezes said at the opening of an expanded brewery in Africa's second-most populous country. He declined to say when he expected to reach the goal.
"Africa is hugely important for Diageo and Ethiopia is going to be one of the cornerstone markets for us in the future," the CEO said in a Feb. 25 interview with Bloomberg Africa Television at the Meta Abo brewery in Sebeta. "I see Africa growing faster than the Diageo average both in beer and in spirits, and the two go hand in hand."
The world's largest spirits maker is leaning more on Africa as North America, its biggest and most profitable market, continues to struggle. The London-based distiller manufactures in 16 African countries and sells its brands in 40 on a continent that is expected to have a fifth of the world's population by 2030. Diageo has invested $119 million in Meta Abo since buying the brewery from Ethiopia's government for $225 million three years ago.
"This is a very exciting market," Menezes said. "It's got good demographics, very good economic growth and we've got good support from the government."
Ethiopia, one of Africa's fastest-growing economies, is expected to grow an average of 8.1 percent annually through 2019, the International Monetary Fund said in October. The country's estimated population of 94.1 million was increasing at 2.6 percent a year in 2013, according to the World Bank.
Sales of Guinness in Nigeria, Africa's largest economy, have rebounded after Diageo tried to "premiumize" its operation last year at a time when consumers were seeking cheaper drinks, Menezes said. The ill-timed price increase resulted in a 9 percent drop in Nigerian sales last year, and Diageo has since hired a new management team in response.
"The corrections we made in Nigeria are working well and the last few months we see growing momentum in that business," he said.
Diageo's investments in Ethiopia include the new bottling line at Meta Abo, which is 14 miles (23 kilometers) southwest of the capital Addis Ababa. The addition will triple its annual production capacity to 1.7 million hectoliters. It's also digging wells to bring drinking water to thousands of residents.
Other brewers are eager to slake Ethiopia's growing thirst for beer. Heineken NV, the Dutch company that bought two Ethiopian government breweries in 2011 for $163 million, opened a 110 million-euro ($123 million) plant near Addis Ababa in January. BGI Ethiopia, a unit of French drinks maker Groupe Castel, produces St George beer -- the nation's top seller -- from a 93-year-old brewery in the capital.
"I see a market the size of Ethiopia having significant opportunities for all the players to grow," Menezes said.
|
read more |
|
BAT Kenya reports Full Year PBT +11.00% 2014 Earnings here share price -3.30% in 2015 Kenyan Economy |
Par Value: 10/- Closing Price: 878.00 Total Shares Issued: 100000000.00 Market Capitalization: 87,800,000,000 EPS: 42.55 PE: 20.6345
Full Year Earnings through 31st December 2014 versus through December 2013 Full Year Gross Turnover 34.124b versus 31.916b +7.00% Full Year net Revenue 21.032b versus 19.619b Full Year Profit before Tax 6.095b versus 5.470b +11.00% Full Year Profit after Tax 4.255b versus 3.724b Full Year Earnings Per Share 42.55 versus 37.24 Final Dividend 39 shillings a share Dividend Pay Out 42.50 shillings a share
Company Commentary
Gross Turnover increased by 7% driven by incremental contract manufacturing volumes from the DRC. Export Sales and improved performance in the domestic market Cash generated from operations increased significantly by 31% to 6.6b We continue to invest in the Nairobi hub
Conclusions
Strong Earnings and the pre-eminent dividend stock at the Nairobi Securities Exchange
|
read more |
|
KENGEN releases First Half PAT +106.42% 2014 Earnings here share price +3.39% in 2015 Kenyan Economy |
Par Value: 2.50/- Closing Price: 10.65 Total Shares Issued: 2198361344.00 Market Capitalization: 23,412,548,314 EPS: 1.29 PE: 8.256
6 months through 31st December 2014 versus through 31st December 2013 Installed Capacity 1,575 versus 1,231 MW Units sold 3,383 versus 3,098 GWh First Half Total Revenue 12.183b versus 8.916b First Half Electricity Revenue 11.659b versus 8.482b First Half Operating Expenses [6.991b] versus [5.842b] First Half Finance Costs [1.377b] versus [1.385b] First Half Profit before Tax 3.790b versus 1.836b First Half Profit After Tax 3.790b versus 1.836b +106.42% First Half Earnings Per Share 2.24 versus 0.46 +386.95%
Revenue from electricity sales rose 37 percent to 11.659 billion shillings for the six months to December, the firm said. Total revenue rose to 12.18 billion shillings from 8.92 billion shillings. KenGen, which is planning to raise cash for expansion and also to help the company restructure its balance sheet, said its installed capacity had risen to 1,575 megawatts from 1,231 MW. The company will carry out a cash call to raise 30 billion shillings ($331.13 million), which the energy ministry said late last year could be completed in the first quarter of this year. Albert Mugo, KenGen's chief executive, said the plans for "the capital restructuring are at an advanced stage," but gave no further details. KenGen's expansion plans are part of a greater government push to increase power production capacity by an extra 5,000 MW by 2017 from about 1,664 MW now, to attract investment. KenGen said earnings per share rose to 2.24 shillings from 0.46 shillings but would not pay an interim dividend. The firm did not pay a dividend in the same period in 2013.
Conclusions
Stronger margins and some capacity expansion. the Capital Call needs to get underway because its been a Drag for a while.
|
read more |
|
Pan Africa insurance reports FY PAT 2014 Earnings here share price -6.666% in 2015 Kenyan Economy |
Par Value: 5/- Closing Price: 112.00 Total Shares Issued: 96000000.00 Market Capitalization: 10,752,000,000 EPS: 9.07 PE: 12.348
Full Year Net Written premium 4.900770b versus 5.101827b Full Year Investment Income 1.993175b versus 1.534084b Full Year Fair Value Gains 648.386m versus 1.168709b Full Year Other Operating income [including Property] 293.651m versus 685.054m Full Year Total Other Revenue 2.984225b versus 3.440527b Full Year Total Income 7.974995b versus 8.542354b Full Year Total benefits claims and other expenses [6.825007b] versus [7.027998b] Full Year Profit before Tax 1.152598b versus 1.516444b Full Year Profit after Tax 871.190m versus 1.250432b Full Year Earnings Per Share 9.07 versus 13.05
From the accompanying commentary
Shareholders Funds +13% to 3.78b Total Assets +16% to 24.6b Pan Africa Life assurance limited Embedded Value increased by 35% Group EV +21% ''Property sales under performed due to a depressed market'' Recommending a bonus dividend of 1 new share for every two held In lieu of a cash dividend
Conclusions
They had warned but that Warning came 18-FEB-2015 which is very late in the day. Its a solid business and I expect a rebound in mark to market gains in FY 2015
|
read more |
|
Unga Group reports H1 PBT +78.045% 2014 Earnings here share price +13.20% in 2015 Kenyan Economy |
Par Value: 5/- Closing Price: 45.00 Total Shares Issued: 75708872.00 Market Capitalization: 3,406,899,240 EPS: 6.35 PE: 7.087
First Half Results through 31st December 2014 versus through Dec 2013 [restated] First Half Revenue 9.651343b versus 8.836517b First Half Operating Profit 409.764m versus 293.541m First Half Other Income 169.579m versus 32.964m Foreign Exchange Losses [52.088m] versus 4.263m First Half Profit before Taxation 527.254m versus 330.768m First Half Profit after Tax 412.241m versus 231.537m +78.045% First Half Earnings Per Share 3.41 versus 1.96
Company Commentary
improved financial performance attributable to the full period impact of capacity and efficiency gains from the new wheat mill and gains from the sale of group's investment in Bullpak limited Increased sifted maize meal volumes realised as a consequence of a 25% average decline in finished product prices new route-to-consumer strategy for its kenyan human nutrition business acquisition of majority shareholding in Ennsvalley Bakery limited is progressing towards completion.
Conclusions
Strong Earnings.
|
read more |
|
N.S.E Today |
We are now slap bang in the middle of the Earnings Season here at the Nairobi Securities Exchange. The Nairobi Bourse has been on quite a Roll in 2015 and accelerated sharply out of the blocks in 2015. The move higher was juiced by a re routing of international funds pointed at Lagos to Nairobi [and South Africa] Further Juice was added by the perception that the SSA Oil Consumer Economies will get some relief from the lower Oil Price structure and put something in the Pocket of the Consumer. In my Interview, Joshua Oigara drew a parallel between underlying conditions at this moment and conditions in Q4 2007 when the Economy was in the sweetest of sweet spots. The Nairobi NSE20 surged to Fresh more than 60 month High to close at 5,491.37. The NSE20 has rallied 379 points and +7.42% in a blistering start to 2015. The Nairobi All Share is +7.864% and just marginally off a record high reached this week, The Equity market rally has legs.
|
|
N.S.E Equities - Commercial & Services |
Safaricom ticked +0.32% higher to close at 15.80 and traded 9.18m shares worth 144.235m. Safaricom has surged +12.455% and a whisker off an all time closing High reached earlier this week. I expect the Price to break through 16.00 and meaningfully in the near term.
We learnt from the Business Daily that Jamii Bora is now the single largest shareholder in Uchumi and has overtaken the Government of Kenya and this news popped Uchumi shares +8.91% higher to close at 11.00 on heavy volume action of 1.386m shares worth 15.242m. As it currently stands, Uchumi is undersized for the optimal Growth Trajectory and as such needs a Partner with deep pockets. Clearly Jamii Bora sees that as an Opportunity.
Nation Media ticked 0.38% easier to close at 261.00 but traded shares as low as 253.00 -3.44%. Nation Media [and Standard Group] shares have behaved with some resilience given that it is estimated that the Stand-Off is costing approximately 230m daily across the 3 Networks Nation, Standard and Citizen. Nation Media is -0.76% in 2015 and looks a very benign price reaction to something that will have a less than benign impact on Earnings. A Profits Warning is surely now overdue. Standard Group reacted 4.278% lower to close at 44.75 and traded 2,100 shares. Standard Group is -1.10% in 2015 and evidently the downside risk is of a greater magnitude than the upside opportunity.
ScanGroup popped +2.04% higher to close at 50.00 which is a more than 6 month closing High. ScanGroup traded 334,100 shares and has bounced +11.11% over the last two trading sessions.
|
|
N.S.E Equities - Finance & Investment |
Kenya Commercial Bank reported really muscular FY Earnings Thursday morning and expanded the Asset Base by 100b Year on Year which frankly is the loudest signal in the Earnings Noise. Yesterdays subdued price reaction was on the unchanged Dividend, in my opinion. The Key Point to note is that KCB sees a step growth Trajectory ahead of it and is conserving cash for that accelerated expansion. This line of thinking leaked into the market today lifting the share price +2.542% to close at 60.50 and KCB traded shares as high as 64.50 +9.32% [an all time High Price Print] during the session. Kenya Commercial Bank is +6.14% in 2015 and set to run up to 66.00 in the short term. Kenya Commercial bank traded 2.58m shares with Buyers for twice that volume seen at the Finish Line. CO-OP Bank firmed 2.272% to close at 22.50 and traded 1.721m shares. CO-OP Bank shares have run +12.5% higher over the course of the last 15 trading sessions as Investors anticipate Full Year Earnings. Standard chartered Bank rallied 1.142% to close at 354.00 which is a Fresh 2015 high.
Pan Africa insurance reported FY PAT 2014 declined to 871.190m from 1.2504b before the Opening Bell. They had issued a Full Year Profits Warning a little late and on the 18th of February. They are Recommending a bonus dividend of 1 new share for every two held in lieu of a cash dividend and it was this news which was the Trigger for a 7.142% rally in the share price which closed at 120.00. Pan Africa was printing trades at 129.00 +15.18% at the Finale. Its a solid business and I expect a rebound in mark to market gains in FY 2015.
|
|
N.S.E Equities - Industrial & Allied |
EABL retreated a further 2.83% to close at 309.00 and traded 198,500 shares. EABL has retreated a steep 10.43% over six trading sessions. This bearish price action was a consequence of the Keroche Breweries Scale-Up Plan and is a massive overreaction.
KENGEN reported an eye popping +106.42% acceleration in First Half PAT. First Half revenue surged +36.54% and Earnings per share ratcheted +386.95% higher. KENGEN benefited significantly from a KES 1.1bn tax credit as a result of capital allowances related to the commissioning of the Ol-Karia Geothermal Facility. As a result of the significant increase in earnings-per-share in 1H15, the company now trades at a trailing price-to-earnings ratio of 3.5 and a price-to-book ratio of 0.3 as at close-of-business on Thursday 26th February. The Challenge for investors remains that KENGEN is set to launch a Capital Call for 30b shillings which will be massively dilutive Mr. Mugo needs to grasp the moment and roll out the Capital Call because its been a Drag for a while. KENGEN surged +13.68% to close at 12.05 on heavy volume action of 4.428m shares worth 53.452m and traded shares as high as 13.00 +22.6415% during the session.
BAT Kenya reported an 11% Acceleration in Full Year Profit Before Tax with Full Year Gross Turnover expanding +7.00%. The Company cited ''incremental contract manufacturing volumes from the DRC'' as enhancing its Turnover. BAT is the preeminent dividend paying stock at the Nairobi Securities Exchange and pays 99.88% of its Earnings Per share out as Dividend. BAT ticked 0.3416% lower to close at 875.00 on meaningful volume action of 128,900 shares worth 112.797m.
Unga Group reported a +78.045 First Half Profit before Tax acceleration and said ''improved financial performance attributable to the full period impact of capacity and efficiency gains from the new wheat mill and gains from the sale of group's investment in Bullpak limited'' Unga rallied +5.55% to close at 47.50 and traded shares as high as 49.50 +10.00% at the closing Bell. Unga was a Stand-out Performer in 2014 and has now served up a +19.496% return in 2015.
|
|
|
|
|