Monday, November 26, 2007

Monday shorts

  • The proposal to limit foreign ownership of companies that are NSE-listed to 60% is I think a good one. Most of these pay themselves a high dividend as a way of exporting 
    their profits back to their home nations.
  • Northern cRock's long suffering shareholders will probably get £0.40 for each of their shares under the best rescue deal being offered by Virgin. The share was trading at £12+ in Feb of this year. Mind you, its a 146 years since the last bank run on a UK bank.
  • US probably has a 60% chance of hitting recession next year and UK around 30% thanks to credit crunch.
  • With England (and the rest of the nations that form UK and Ireland) out of next summer's European Championships (its the equivalent of Kenya's General Election being postponed), there have been suggestions as to things the English can be doing in June 2008 ranging from National Moths night 
    to World Championship in Nettles eating (the English have a PHD in eccentricity).
  • What exactly is the point of the Commonwealth apart from reminding us that we once a British colony?

4 comments:

The Black Mamba said...

Maina,
They should have gone further than 60%. Foreigners should not be allowed to have a controlling majority.

Retrogressive? Yes. But we need to encourage local investors to participate more in the market.

MainaT said...

You are Ssem. 51% which is waht is required for a firm to call its Kenyan operations as a subsidiary, should be the rule.

Its not retrogressive and quite afew of the emerging markets have a similar rule.

kivuts said...

Props on the blog. By 60% foreign, does that include Kenyan's abroad? If so, I may be furthering the problem, though i'm in a bit of a fix.

I've been looking for a way to invest in Kenyan companies, but I can't be bothered with the whole stock speculation story. I was thinking about unit trusts, but the minimums are a bit high and I can't find a collective investment scheme that takes my fancy(or I can trust for that matter)
I could do with some unbiased advice...

I'm currently looking into ETFs in emerging markets...interesting.

MainaT said...

Kivuts, the 60% is for non-Kenyans.
I've done a post on unit trusts, Zimele have an initial entry amount of Ksh5,000 so you maybe could try them.

On EFTs, I'll be doing a post possibly in Dec ofr Jan however, I am very sure that if you are in the UK or US, you will easily be able to get ones with specific EM targets.