Corporate News
A KCB banking hall. Some 15 million KCB shares changed hands last week. Photo/FILE
By VICTOR JUMA
Barclays Kenya
CEO Jeremy Awori has bought 57,300 shares of the bank, joining the
ranks of executives who own shares in the for NSE-listed companies they
lead.
His shareholding in Barclays is disclosed in the
bank’s latest annual report that also showed Ashok Shah, a non-executive
director and chief executive of APA Insurance, had also upped his
ownership to 544,380 shares last year compared to 474,380 shares in
2012.
Mr Awori’s stake is currently valued at nearly Sh1
million based on Barclays’ stock price of Sh17, which is a six per cent
drop over the last 12 months.
His equity interest is seen as a vote of confidence in the lender’s outlook.
Jonathan Ciano, the CEO of Uchumi Supermarkets, George Mwangi of East African Cables and James Mworia (Centum Investment) are some of the CEOs who have a piece of the companies they manage.
These executives are, however, still far from joining the club of billionaire shareholder chief executives where Equity Bank’s James Mwangi, Scangroup’s Bharat Thakrar, Co-op Bank’s Gideon Muriuki and ARM Cement’s Pradeep Paunrana belong.
Analysts say CEOs buying shares in their company could also be a signal that the executive believes the stock is undervalued.
Mr Awori’s predecessor Adan Mohamed also held a
significant stake in the bank, with his ownership listed as 296,000
shares as of December 2012. Mr Awori —former CEO of Standard Chartered
Tanzania— took over from Mr Mohamed in February last year.
Mr Mohamed had been appointed chief
administrative officer of Barclays Africa, a position he resigned from
to join the government as the Industrialisation secretary.
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