Saturday, May 09, 2009

NSE Weekly catch up

NSE stayed flat this week as other markets motored forward. Mainly I suspect that Kenyans are not feeling the bourse like prior years. Cash I think is there, but we all need to see a more convincing political and economic forecast. Stock investment is about hope.

FY Results:
Eagads a coffee and tea grower, saw a vast improvement in turnover but also benefited from Ksh20m gain from revaluation to record profit for the year. The cash flow statement looks peculiar to say the least with cash from operations somehow going down by Ksh12m. No dps.
Kenya Orchards, reported a Ksh7m loss for '08 on the back of a Ksh10m operating loss whose detail is not given and 26% decline in turnover. Cash from operations was massively in the red presumably relating to the operating loss issue but overall cash was positive. No dps for the year.

Q1 Results:
KCB opened the Q1 show with a 3% PAT growth on prior yr. I have switched my remaining stake in KCB to AK on the back of results which were a puzzle. Like the fact that annual reports will be emailed to shareholders in future though.
Finally, HFCK is showing the potential one suspected it had. PAT grew by 1.5 times on prior year driven by massive growth in loans. I suspect Kenyans are switching from NSE to real estate in a big way and HFCK has really aligned itself to take advantage of this. Still not sure how Equity intends to help HFCK leverage on its brand and network but this has to be the way forward. HFCK has been very innovative in terms of products and distribution. One of the products out there is its Makao project management which I'd recommend to NRKs.

Rumours:
AK is a takeover target.

Macro:
Its either the supplementary budget got in the way of UK's serious imbibing time or the fruit never falls too far from the tree. Excellent work by MARS though.

FTSE & other markets:
Turned green for the first time this yr yesterday. Risk appetite is back. Dudes are unhappy gettting 1-2% savings rate. Plus depression, swine flu et al have all been overhyped so that when reality hits, there is relief. And this is the result.
Great leakage work by Tim Geithner on the stress tests. The numbers were no different from those reported by FT almost two weeks ago.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

This week's East African, page 26 (They haven't loaded this week's edition on the online version) says MTN has bought 60% of UUNET Kenya. Could that have been the source of the Access Kenya take-over rumours? How is the entry of MTN likely to affect Access Kenya?

MainaT said...

Joram-I believe its a direct rival to AK.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

(Disclaimer: Below is my personal opinion & conjecture - probably wrong...)

I wouldn't be surprised if AK "takeover rumors" are generated from AK itself...

Quick reckoning would suggest that if AK prospects were as fantastic as suggested by it's stock, it would have already been snapped up in last year's vicious Telecomm war.

AK business model is quite baffling. Possibly locked into Satellite deals. Growing by acquisition. Lack of focus - positioning as a corporate provider then targeting homes with mass market products.

Add to that a stake in fibre optic that conflicts with their satellite model (how does that impact the satellite contracts + costs of retention / termination???!).

Call me rigid but, the Owner's "exit" via IPO + the "phenomenal growth potential" hype that ensued still sounds paradoxical to me.

I do realize however, that I could have cashed in big time on AK's hype (it's probably too late now - but the lesson is duly noted)!

Cheers!

MainaT said...

Maishinski-whether its a rumour or not AK is a nice piece of NSE estate to own...