Money Markets
Industrialisation and Enterprise secretary Adan Mohamed rings the bell
to officially launch trading for the Nairobi Securities Exchange on
September 9, 2014. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU |
NATION MEDIA GROUP
By VICTOR JUMA, vjuma@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
- The transactions reflected a mix of profit-taking in share rallies, capital-raising activities, and exits from depressed stocks to cut losses.
- Billionaire investor Baloobhai Patel topped the list of the biggest beneficiaries of 2014’s stock market rally, earning more than Sh100 million from partial sale of his stock holdings.
- Scores of retail investors also booked significant combined earnings from share sales by the NSE and Centum where they are shareholders.
Billionaire investor Baloobhai Patel topped the list
of the biggest beneficiaries of 2014’s stock market rally, earning more
than Sh100 million from partial sale of his stock holdings.
Investment banker Jimnah Mbaru and TransCentury
shareholders Zephania Mbugua, Peter Kanyago, Eddy Njoroge, Stephen
Waruhiu, and Ephraim Njogu, who earned between Sh25.9 million and Sh78
million from trading shares, made the list of top winners of the stock
market game.
Thousands of shareholders in investment firm Centum
and the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), including stockbrokers, also
benefited indirectly from the sale of shares by the two companies.
The transactions reflected a mix of profit-taking
in share rallies, capital-raising activities, and exits from depressed
stocks to cut losses.
Mr Patel, for instance, sold five million Safaricom
shares he had held for more than three years. The trades, coming at a
time when the stock had rallied to new highs, are estimated to have
earned him over Sh60 million.
Safaricom’s share price recently touched a record
of Sh15, triple its 2008 listing price of Sh5 in what has been linked to
increased investor confidence in the stock on the back of its rising
profitability.
Mr Patel also disposed of his 17 million shares in sugar miller Mumias
for an estimated Sh42 million, exiting the loss-making firm that has
suffered from increased competition and alleged management fraud.
The businessman sold the stock before it plunged
below Sh2, a record low for the miller that is crafting a strategy to
lift it out of the loss-making hole in which it has been trapped for two
years.
The recent share sales are unique for Mr Patel who
hardly trades his stocks, preferring to hold or boost his equity
position in a number of publicly traded firms.
The largest sell-offs by individual investors were
concentrated in the stock of investment firm TransCentury, whose
chairman Mr Mbugua sold three million units for about Sh78 million.
Mr Njoroge traded 2.6 million units for an
estimated Sh67.3 million while Mr Kanyago sold 2.5 million units for
Sh64.7 million. Mr Mbaru disposed of 2.4 million units for Sh64.5
million.
Mr Waruhiu traded 1.5 million units for Sh38
million as Mr Njogu kept his sale to a maximum of one million shares
that earned him Sh25 million.
The trades came as the TransCentury stock traded at an average of Sh25 or half its listing price of Sh50 in 2011.
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