Safaricom Investment Co-operative (SIC) has lined up to join 17
other firms at Ibuka, the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) programme
that aims to help companies list on the bourse.
The
move by the investment group makes it the first sacco to express
interest in listing and raising hopes of attracting more cooperatives to
the market, thus bringing more transparency to the sacco movement.
Nairobi
County Director of Co-operatives Dolphin Aremo said SIC’s move was bold
and a step towards promoting growth and development of co-operatives.
oversee activities
“From
the ministry of Industry, Trade and Co-operatives, our role is to
oversee the activities of all the co-operatives in this country.
Safaricom Investment is one of the leading co-operatives and is the
first one to take this bold step,” she said.
The firm says its next phase for growth is leveraging the NSE to access liquidity against investment.
“We
have acquired and sold over 100 investment projects, including four
major housing projects. SIC has issued ownership documents to over 3,000
of our investors in the last decade,” said Safaricom Investment
Co-operative CEO Humphrey Njeru said.
SIC, which mainly
does real estate projects, marketable Securities and private equity
ventures, reported a 46 percent drop in net surplus of Sh6.9 million in
2018 from Sh12.8 million on higher administrative costs.
These
shot up from Sh12 million to Sh27 million which included a Sh10 million
tax penalty, doubling of office expenses, rise in rent and office
software maintenance.
Cost of governance also doubled
from Sh6.7 million in 2017 to Sh12.6 million on a rally of committee
expenses and Sh0.7 million under provision for AGM meeting on top of
Sh3.7 million for expenses of the annual meeting.
Business
development costs also rose twofold on aggressive marketing
budget,increase in funding research and development as well as strategic
planning and training members.
Housing Income declined
57 percent from Sh124 million to Sh61 million attributed to reduction
in house sales but land sales went up three percent from Sh315 million
to Sh399 million.
The society recorded a total income from projects of Sh460 million which was mainly attributed to the increase in sale of land.
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