Tuesday, May 27, 2008

NSE Update

KenGen continues to disappoint. 2 years after its listing ushered a new era at the NSE, the company looks like its at a standstill. Note that even if you take off the depreciation hit it took for interim 2007/8, you'd end up with flat y-o-y growth. And I don't it has much by way of pipeline projects that will increase power output.

Merali companies, of which there are 3 at the NSE are notoriuos for under-delivering. As Everready heads to Ksh1, Sameer also has issues. Its blaming likely lower profit on events in Jan-Feb. Does that mean 1 quarter makes up its whole year? Sassini also saw lower interim profits despite only a small fall in turnover. I guess there goes Merali's plan to list one company per year...

When the CFC-Stanbic merger was announced yester-yr, there were some including me who were very excited. Over the last yr however, I've been re-examining the group and can see it has issues. The CFC Life business is seriuos drag on the it and the bank is not excitely firing on all cylinders. For Q1, group saw a 10% fall in PAT, due I suspect the fact that CFC Life continues to get hit by over-reliance on the NSE. The bank with a 10% rise, also underpeformed relative to peers.

Is it to take another look at StanChart? Notice FY saw 32% rise in PAT, comfortably above peer BBK and almost on a similar level to KCB. Then Q1 saw another jaunty 25% rise primarily driven by FX fee growth. But is it sustainable? I reckon I might just get some shares so I can find out at close quarters... After all, most other banks have seen furiuos balance sheet growth over the last yr and if the economy comes off the track, NPLs won't be far behind.
DTB is ofcourse a favourite bank share, 28% growth in Q1 is respectable.

3 comments:

J K said...

Stanchart as a speculative stock is very dull and dissappointing. Bought some late 2006 at about 200 and it's price movement has not allowed me to get out since I cannot recoup even the brokers 4% plus commission. In their AGM last week they dashed any hope I had in the stock by categorically stating that they would not split it which was one of my reasons of boarding this boat. But looking at the ownership structure 75% is locked into one holding company which really might be interested only on performance and dividends accrued and of course capital gains in very long term perspective

MainaT said...

Jimmy,longtime!

StnaChart did get to Ksh270 about two yrs ago.Guys will start looking at the stock again as they digest FY07 and Q1 numbers.
I am looking tolighten on BBK which is disappointment in growth and incoime terms and move over across to StanChart.

uginvestor said...

Do you guys in the diaspora receive the annual reports for these companies eg Stanchart, total?
Personally I think Stanchart is good buy but is purely not for speculators. Of course it will favor those who buy loads of shares.