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Friday 24th of February 2017
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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 |
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This Saturday 25th February @InterConNairobi #Mindspeak hosts @sidchat1 - This is Sid Entry Free Bring your Mind Africa |
SDGs, Kenya's Youth Bulge and potential for a demographic dividend as
well as achieving universal health coverage in Kenya.
Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator and
the UNDP Resident Representative to Kenya.
He is a feminist and a passionate humanitarian and development worker.
His service in the United Nations and the Red Cross movement has
spanned over 20 years. He has served in some fragile and difficult
parts of the world, driven by a desire to make a real difference in
the lives of the most vulnerable.
A highlight of his career was to get 3551 child soldiers demobilised
from the Sudan People's Liberation Army. ''This was the largest ever
demobilisation ever done during an ongoing conflict. Here is his TEDx
talk. (Ps hyperlink) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j964XqRWfNI
A consummate writer on human development issues, he has a blog in
Huffington Post and Reuters. His articles have also featured in the
Guardian, CNN, Al Jazeera, Inter Press Service as well as in Kenyan
and Indian mainstream media.
His early career was in the Indian Army Special Forces and was
decorated for gallantry by the President of India.
He is a graduate of the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and
International Affairs at Princeton University, USA.
Here is his full bio.( ps hyperlink) http://siddharthchatterjee.me/
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These are the world's best equity markets ...since 1900 @business Africa |
Between 1900 and 2016, the world economy moved from telegraphy to
smartphones, horse-drawn carriages to supercars and from letter press
to Internet. But throughout this period, a few countries produced the
highest average returns for investors in stocks and bonds. According
to a study by Credit Suisse Group AG and the London Business School,
the best equity markets over the past 117 years were commodity-rich
nations such as South Africa, Australia, the U.S. and Canada, while
Denmark and Sweden yielded the highest bond returns.
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North Korea says China is "dancing to the tune of the U.S." in an unusual hostile commentary Law & Politics |
North Korea hit out at China in an unusual hostile commentary on
state-run media, denouncing the country’s decision to ban coal imports
from the isolated nation as “inhumane” and vowing to carry on
developing nuclear weapons.
While the piece published Thursday by the state-run Korean Central
News Agency didn’t mention the country’s Cold War ally by name, it
made no effort to disguise the “friendly neighbor” in question. The
commentary called the coal ban “tantamount to the enemies’ moves to
bring down the social system” in North Korea, which is formally known
as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“This country, styling itself a big power, is dancing to the tune of
the U.S., while defending its mean behavior with such excuses that it
was meant not to have a negative impact on the living of the people in
the DPRK, but to check its nuclear program,” KCNA commentary said.
@andregrupo: Panoramica de la #CDMX en 1946. #Mexico Reforma,
Juárez, Alameda, Monumento a Revolución, Insurgentes @RoyCampos
https://twitter.com/RoyCampos/status/818322276529512448
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Cyber Warfare Russia mobilises an elite band of cyber warriors @FT Law & Politics |
It was an early dinner by Parisian standards, 8.40pm, on a mild spring
evening at Prunier, an opulent seafood restaurant near the Arc de
Triomphe. Amid the hum of conversation, the cracking of shellfish and
the gentle chinking of glasses, Yves Bigot missed the insistent
ringing. “Then I saw — multiple missed calls, SMS messages, emails,
the whole shebang,” he recalls. “Both my phones were going berserk.”
Frantic staff at TV5Monde’s nearby offices had been trying to get in
touch with their boss. Something had gone terribly wrong.
It was April 9 2015, and the channels across TV5Monde’s network, the
world’s largest francophone broadcaster, began switching off, one by
one. Hundreds of television screens at its headquarters, from the
lobby to its broadcast galleries, had fallen silent. In its basement,
the TV network’s servers were being systematically erased, digital
piece by digital piece.
As he scrolled through panicked emails, Mr Bigot, the broadcaster’s
director-general, opened a picture message on his phone. A colleague
had taken screengrabs from the channel’s website and social media
accounts: in place of the usual turquoise signage was the shahada —
the Muslim profession of faith — written in white on black. Above it:
“CyberCaliphate. Je suIS IS”.
Surrounded by squads of heavily armed counterterror police, a team of
engineers worked through the night to save the network. They did so by
a hair’s breadth.
Two months later, ANSSI, France’s cyber security agency, briefed Mr
Bigot. The attack had not been the work of the Islamist group at all.
Instead they believed responsibility lay with a group known as APT 28.
They were Russian.
A year later, in the spring of 2016 during the US election campaign,
APT 28 would initiate an even more audacious operation. The group
hacked the Democratic National Committee, releasing thousands of files
to discredit Hillary Clinton and calling into question the sanctity of
the US democratic system.
The scale of the attack shocked the US, if not the entire western
security community. But for those familiar with APT 28’s evolution,
and the shift in its operations represented by the attack on TV5Monde,
it came as no surprise.
“The curtain is still being pulled back,” says Shawn Henry, a former
assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, now
president of CrowdStrike, the cyber security company drafted in to
defend the DNC. “People still don’t understand the implications and
the impact of these types of attack . . . We’re further away from
[security in cyber space], in the US, than we were eight years ago.”
Many fear the group’s activities are far from over. Cyber attacks on
Nato are up 60 per cent in the past year, according to one official at
the alliance. Attacks against EU institutions are up 20 per cent, says
one senior security source at the commission.
The trail of evidence left by these attacks, while far from
comprehensive, goes some way toward indicating the way Russia under
President Vladimir Putin sees the world, and how the modern Russian
state must secure its place within it. It is one of tactical
opportunism and flexibility, but also deep and considered strategic
commitments, lines of attack and influence, that have been years in
development.
“Putin and his team are the heirs of the Tsarist, and particularly the
Communist secret services,” says Chris Donnelly, founder of the
Institute for Statecraft and former adviser to successive Nato
secretaries-general. “Their understanding is one of permanent conflict
with the west in which information has always been a very important
issue. Influence and subversion and the whole issue of what they call
active measures, or dirty tricks, anything short of declared war, is
there to be run.”
Costin Raiu, head of global research at Moscow-based cyber security
firm Kaspersky Labs, says APT 28’s resources distinguish it from other
hacking groups. What sets it apart, Mr Raiu says, is the number of
“zero day” attacks — operations which exploit flaws in software
unknown to the manufacturer — that it carries out at a cost to the
group of well over $100,000 a time. In 2015, the group carried out six
known zero-day attacks.
The crucial question, though, is why APT 28 shifted from years of
covert, if predictable, intelligence gathering to a riskier operation
of aggression, sabotage and manipulation. The attack on TV5Monde, says
Mr Bigot, “was like a demo tape”.
Kremlinologists and the western intelligence community are still
divided on the timing of Russia’s altered course in relations with the
west: some date it to Kiev’s Maidan revolution in 2014 and subsequent
invasion of eastern Ukraine; some see a slower-burning breakdown, with
Moscow’s paranoia exacerbated by years of freewheeling US foreign
policy and enthusiasm for regime change; a smaller group see an ever
wider arc in which Russia is reasserting its Soviet, even Tsarist,
geopolitical behaviour.
Russia’s military does not tend to talk of cyber warfare, as the west
does, in tightly proscribed, legally measured actions, but rather
discusses the broader concept of an information war — a concept that
precedes the Soviet era — in which the toolkit has been brought up to
speed for the digital era.
On Wednesday, Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu confirmed the
existence of “information troops”, rumoured for years but long denied
by officials. “Propaganda must be smart, literate and effective,” he
told the lower house of parliament. Russia spends $300m annually on
its “cyber army” of about 1,000 people annually, according to the
Kommersant business newspaper.
“They really believe they are under some sort of siege,” Mr Soldatov
says. “They believe that they lost the first Chechen war thanks to
journalists, so when they are in a crisis, the first thing they need
to do is control the information space.”
Russia analysts say there is a structural dynamic to the rise in APT
28’s activity. In 2013, Mr Putin ordered a modernisation of the way
Russia controls its operations abroad. It created the National Defence
Control Centre, designed to co-ordinate everything from propaganda,
economic influence and intelligence through to conventional military
operations.
“When they are looking at all these forms of conflict and competition
now, they do so with a unified coherent view of how they should play
things,” says Mr Donnelly. “It’s a militarised conception of how to
operate.”
It has catapulted the GRU into a central role in Russia’s engagement
with its adversaries. “The GRU has become very significant,” says
James Sherr, associate fellow at the Chatham House think-tank. “And if
you’re very significant then in the Russian system you expand.”
It is a volatile situation. Real-world tensions between Russia and
Nato are running high in militarised zones like the Baltic and the
Black Sea. “Cyber space,” jokes a recently retired senior British
general, “is the new Balkans.”
Conclusions
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05-DEC-2016 :: "We have a deviate, Tomahawk." Law & Politics |
Putin has proven himself an information master, and his adversaries
are his information victims.
However, my starting point is the election of President Donald Trump
because hindsight will surely show that Russia ran a seriously
sophisticated programme of interference, mostly digital.
Don DeLillo, who is a prophetic 21st writer, writes as follows in one
of his short stories:
The specialist is monitoring data on his mission console when a voice
breaks in, “a voice that carried with it a strange and unspecifiable
poignancy”.
He checks in with his flight-dynamics and conceptual- paradigm
officers at Colorado Command:
“We have a deviate, Tomahawk.”
“We copy. There’s a voice.”
“We have gross oscillation here.”
“There’s some interference. I have gone redundant but I’m not sure
it’s helping.”
“We are clearing an outframe to locate source.”
“Thank you, Colorado.”
“It is probably just selective noise. You are negative red on the
step-function quad.”
“It was a voice,” I told them.
“We have just received an affirm on selective noise... We will
correct, Tomahawk. In the meantime, advise you to stay redundant.”
The voice, in contrast to Colorado’s metallic pidgin, is a melange of
repartee, laughter, and song, with a “quality of purest, sweetest
sadness”.
“Somehow we are picking up signals from radio programmes of 40, 50, 60
years ago.”
I have no doubt that Putin ran a seriously 21st predominantly digital
programme of interference which amplified the Trump candidacy. POTUS
Trump was an ideal candidate for this kind of support.
Trump is a linguistic warfare specialist. Look at the names he gave
his opponents: Crooked Hillary, Lyin’ Ted, Little Marco, ‘Low-energy’
Jeb — were devastating and terminal. The first thing is plausible
deniability (and some folks here at home need to remember those
words).
The second thing is non-linearity, you have to learn how to navigate a
linear system (the new 21st digital ecosystem) in a non-linear way
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Wholesale prices for wheat in the Yemeni city of Taiz surged by more than 40 percent on Feb. 12, when the black-market value of the currency, the rial, plunged 30 percent against the U.S. dollar. Law & Politics |
The economy shrank by 28 percent in 2015, as Yemen’s already modest
output of oil tumbled, and was set to contract further in 2016,
according to the latest available data from the World Bank.
“We are looking at a serious risk of starvation for a large proportion
of the population,” Sherin Varkey, UNICEF’s acting representative for
Yemen, said by phone from Sanaa.
The rial slumped to 390 to the dollar on the black market on Feb. 12,
after trading at about 300 for several months, money changers in
Sanaa, Aden and the city of Taiz said by phone. As a result, a 50 kg
(110 pound) sack of wheat, which many Yemenis buy to make bread,
jumped 42 percent that day to 8,500 rials, while the same amount of
sugar rose 27 percent, according to Ahmed al-Sharabi, a food
wholesaler in Taiz.
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Will killing claims bring down Duterte? [No] Law & Politics |
Despite the controversy, Duterte had enjoyed high public opinion
ratings. A polling firm revealed in September that after a hundred
days in office he enjoyed a net satisfaction rating of +64%, higher
than those of all recent Philippine leaders apart from reformist
President Fidel Ramos. Another survey conducted in December showed
Dutete had retained his popularity despite his drug war’s killing
spree.
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IMF urges Nigeria to implement 'coherent and credible' economic policies: spokesman Africa |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund on Thursday
urged Nigeria to step up its economic reform efforts before the
opportunity for reforms becomes more limited.
"Urgency is needed in implementing a coherent and credible package of
monetary, fiscal and structural policies as the window for bold
reforms is closing as the 2019 elections are approaching fast," IMF
spokesman Gerry Rice said at a regular news briefing with reporters.
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President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, known as "Farmajo", named Hassan Ali Khaire as prime minister, state radio website Radio Muqdisho.net said. Africa |
"The president has requested Somali citizens to work with the prime
minister," the statement on Radio Muqdisho.net said.
Mohamed took office peacefully this month after legislators selected
him from 21 possible candidates. A dual U.S.-Somali citizen with a
reputation as a technocrat, he has promised to tackle hunger,
corruption and violence in Somalia, which has been mired in civil war
for a quarter of a century.
Khaire, his new prime minister, is a dual Norwegian citizen who once
worked as a primary school teacher in Norway and also for the
Norwegian Refugee Council before joining Soma Oil and Gas.
In 2015, U.N. sanctions experts accused the company of paying
Somalia's oil ministry nearly $600,000 to protect an 2013 energy
exploration contract.
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Report recommends Safaricom should be broken up: Business Daily Kenyan Economy |
A report commissioned by Kenya's telecoms regulator recommends
breaking Safaricom up into separate telecoms and financial services
businesses because the firm is too dominant, Kenya's Business Daily
newspaper said on Thursday.
The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), which asked consultants
Analysys Mason in May to study competition in the sector, declined to
comment on the leaked findings, saying the draft report was being
reviewed internally.
Safaricom, which is 40 percent owned by Britain's Vodafone, is by far
the biggest telecoms firm in Kenya. It has 26 million subscribers and
dominates the thriving mobile-based financial services sector with its
innovative M-Pesa platform.
"It's a malicious act to leak such a damaging report without first
consulting or at least sharing it with us," Bob Collymore, the chief
executive of Safaricom, told Reuters.
The regulator said the draft findings would be discussed with mobile
operators in Kenya before Analysys Mason, which specialises in
telecoms, media and technology, prepared the final version.
The leaked report comes two days after Jakoyo Midiwo, the deputy
minority leader in parliament, said he was proposing amendments to
banking and communications laws to force Safaricom to separate M-Pesa,
which is regulated by the central bank.
Safaricom is Kenya's biggest firm by market capitalisation and dwarfs
the two other operators in the mobile market: the local subsidiary of
India's Bharti Airtel and Orange, which the French telecoms company
agreed last year to sell to London-based Helios Partners.
The smaller operators have long argued that Safaricom enjoys a
dominant position because it accounts for 90 percent of revenues in
areas such as voice calls and text messages.
Collymore rejected the claim Safaricom is dominant and said any moves
to clip its wings using the study commissioned by the regulator were
designed to help rivals rather than consumers.
He said the publication of the leaked draft had already undermined
foreign investors' confidence in the East African country as an
investment destination.
"It sends a really worrying message to international investors in
investing in the country ... It would imply that this is no longer a
safe place," he said.
Conclusions
This is ridiculous.
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m-Pesa reaches 6B annual transaction milestone Kenyan Economy |
M-Pesa processed 614 million transactions per month by the end of last
year with 29.5 million active customers across 10 markets, Vodafone
revealed.
In a statement celebrating the tenth anniversary of the m-Pesa’s first
launch in Kenya – by Vodafone associate Safaricom – the operator group
said six billion transactions were made on the platform in 2016 with
further strong growth towards the end of the year.
Vodafone Group MD of M-Pesa, Michael Joseph, said: “M-Pesa is a
revolution that has empowered tens of millions of people in some of
the poorest communities in the world to start and grow businesses and
gain greater financial resilience.
“All of us at Vodafone are very proud of how M-Pesa has enhanced our
customers’ daily lives and helped them plan for the future with
confidence.”
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@StanbicKE reports FY 16 EPS -9.911% Earnings here Kenyan Economy |
Par Value: 5/-
Closing Price: 67.00
Total Shares Issued: 395321638.00
Market Capitalization: 26,486,549,746
EPS: 11.18
PE: 5.992
The Kenyan Banc assurance model includes CFC Bank, CFC Financial
Services and Heritage Assurance.
Full Year Earnings through 31st December 2016 versus through December 2015
FY Loans and advances 132.576604b vs. 128.163157b +3.444%
FY Total assets 214.682729b vs. 208.451915b +2.989%
FY Deposits with banks and customers 155.835043 vs. 153.670812b +1.408%
FY Total equity 40.140874b vs. 38.364829b +4.629%
FY Net interest income 10.860047b vs. 9.303047b +16.736%
FY Non-interest revenue 7.657311b vs. 7.641228b +0.210%
FY Total income 18.517358b vs. 16.944275b +9.284%
FY Credit impairment charges [1.751812b] vs. [0.907305b] +93.079%
FY Total operating expenses [10.716460b] vs. [8.677556b] +23.496%
FY PBT 6.049086b vs. 7.359414b -2.419%
FY Profit for the year 4.418589b vs. 4.905734b -9.930%
EPS 11.18 vs. 12.41 -9.911%
Dividend per share 5.25 vs. 6.15 -14.634%
Cash and cash equivalents at 31st December 24.986005b vs. 39.588922b -36.886%
Final Dividend 3.48 [+1.77 Interim Dividend]
KES 1.8bn in credit impairment charges.
At bank level, net interest income grew 17.3% y/y to KES 10.8bn driven
by 10% y/y growth in customer loans and advances
NIMs came in at 6.0% at the end of FY16. Group revenues increased by
9% y/y to KES 18.5bn. Approximately 50.0% of deposits were said to be
unaffected by the 7.0% floor as stipulated in the Banking (Amendment)
Act 2015.
Non funded income, a key driver of Stanbic’s income, rose by 2.7% y/y
to KES 7.4bn.
The Group’s CTI ratio increased to 58% driven largely by a 23% y/y
increase in operating costs.
However, management indicated that stripping out the hyper
inflationary impact of South Sudan, costs increased by 10.0% y/y
representing at CTI ratio of 52%.
The group’s NPL ratio stood at 5.0% at the end of FY16 up from 4.6% in
FY15, with an NPL coverage ratio of 41.3% - although Stanbic indicated
that they continue to remain comfortable with the level of coverage
given adequate collateralization of loans. (Source: Company, Kestrel
Research)
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Barclays agrees to pay $988 mln to split with Barclays Africa Kenyan Economy |
Barclays PLC has agreed to pay Barclays Africa 12.8 billion rand ($988
million) to fund investments required to separate it from its African
unit, Barclays Africa said on Thursday.
Sealing the separation agreement terms paves the way for the British
bank to reduce its stake to below 50 percent under a strategy which
will see it focus on the United States and Britain.
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Kenya Power reports H1 EPS +11.399% Earnings here Kenyan Economy |
Par Value: 20/-
Closing Price: 6.95
Total Shares Issued: 1951467045.00
Market Capitalization: 13,562,695,963
EPS: 3.87
PE: 1.796
The energy company in charge of national transmission, distribution
and retail of electricity throughout Kenya.
The Kenya Power & Lighting Company Limited H1 2016 results through
31st December 2016 vs. 31st December 2015
H1 Revenue 45.795b vs. 41.665b +9.912%
H1 Forex adjustment 2.531b vs. 4.419b -42.725%
H1 Fuel cost recovered 6.183b vs. 7.463b -17.151%
H1 Other income 5.060b vs. 3.155b +60.380%
H1 Total revenue 59.569b vs. 56.702b +5.056%
H1 Power purchase cost (non-fuel) [26.109b] vs. [24.951b] +4.641%
H1 Transmission and distribution costs [16.157b] vs. [13.065b] +23.666%
H1 Operating profit 7.921b vs. 7.593b +4.320%
H1 Finance income – vs. 723m
H1 Finance costs [2.281b] vs. [2.579b] -11.555%
H1 PBT 5.640b vs. 5.737b -1.691%
H1 PAT 4.201b vs. 3.763b +11.399%
EPS 2.15 vs. 1.93 +11.399%
Dividend per share – vs. 0.20
Shareholders’ equity 69.231b vs. 64.626b +7.126%
Cash & cash equivalents at 31st Dec 925m vs. 13.578b -93.188%
Company Commentary
Electricity Revenue [excluding foreign exchange surcharge and fuel
recovery] grew by +9.9% to 45.795m
Fuel Cost declined by -22.9%
Finance costs decreased to 2.281m versus 2.579m - attributable to
reduced short term borrowings
geared towards achieving 70% connectivity by end of this year
Conclusions
On a PE Basis this is a very cheap share.
Headline growth driven by connections.
H1 EPS +11.399%
This is a Buy.
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Unga reports H1 EPS -56.89% Earnings here Kenyan Economy |
Par Value: 5/-
Closing Price: 31.00
Total Shares Issued: 75708872.00
Market Capitalization: 2,346,975,032
EPS: 4.32
PE: 7.176
Unga Group Limited H1 2016 results through 31st December 2016 vs. 31st
December 2015
H1 Turnover 10.246913b vs. 10.519764b -2.594%
H1 Operating profit 172.993m vs. 492.724m -64.890%
H1 Forex loss [29.783m] vs. [32.626m] -8.714%
H1 Profit before taxation 191.439m vs. 463.892m -58.732%
H1 Profit for the year 132.873m vs. 327.189m -59.390%
EPS 1.22 vs. 2.83 -56.890%
Total assets 10.209960b vs. 9.568280b +6.706%
Cash & cash equivalents at the end of the year 1.093590b vs. 0.653266b +67.403%
No interim dividend
Company Commentary
Revenue and profit before Tax declined by 2.6% and 58.7% respectively.
Flour volumes increased, maize flour and major animal category feed
volumes reduced over prior year.
adverse climate that prevailed in the region during the first half of
the financial year, and non-availability of quality maize grain posed
a significant challenge in the ability quality maize grain posed a
significant challenge in the ability to produce maize meal and animal
feeds at full capacity and at competitive price.
high raw material costs and lower volumes resulted in reduced margins
general slow-down in demand and trading difficulties associated with
the formal retail sector has affected the company's nutrition business
in Kenya and Uganda.
Ugandan subsidiary continues to face challenges
Bakery business is undergoing a restructuring exercise
Maize grain shortage is expected to remain a major challenge for the
remainder of the year
Conclusions
Sharply weaker H1 Earnings and they have issued a profits warning.
The accompanying commentary is quite granular in underlying the challenges.
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Longhorn Kenya Ltd reports H1 16 PAT -23.899% Earnings here Kenyan Economy |
Par Value:
Closing Price: 4.40
Total Shares Issued: 369940476.00
Market Capitalization: 1,627,738,094
EPS: 0.66
PE: 6.667
A leading Publishing firm in East Africa.
H1 Earnings through 31st Dec 2016 versus 6 months through 31st Dec 2015
H1 Sales 684.057m vs. 842.458m -18.802%
H1 Cost of sales [318.652m] vs. [480.948m] -33.745%
H1 Gross profit 365.405m vs. 361.510m +1.077%
H1 Profit from operations 58.870m vs. 77.359m -23.900%
H1 PAT 43.564m vs. 57.245m -23.899%
H1 Total assets 1.870154b vs, 1.686208b +10.909%
H1 Total equity 975.556m vs. 505.031m +93.168%
H1 Cash & cash equivalents at the end of the period [3.432m] vs.
[58.426m] -94.126%
Interim dividend 0.07 share
Company Commentary
Sales dropped by 19% - Shift in Buying Patterns in Q3 and conscious
decision by the Board to discontinue low-margin product.
Digital Strategy - Launch of Company's e-learning platforms
Interim Dividend
Conclusions
Soft H2 with Headline Sales -18.802%.
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