While we were away

We've been away during the past 1.5 months during which we were reviewing various markets results of which will be posted later this week.

So what has been happening during the last month or so?

Sub Saharan markets have taken a beating over the past 1 month as a result of the infiltration of sophisticated fund managers. As we all know, these tend to lay claim to scrutiny of stocks in search of profitable stocks. Well, the East African triumvirate presented their budgets
Rights issues took centre stage with Housing Finance Company of Kenya and Kenya Commercial Bank (which is currently ongoing).

One more is scheduled by Uganda’s daily The New Vision. This had all inclinations towards being value for money. The New Vision is offering 25.5 million additional shares at a discounted price of sh1,100 to shareholders during the period from July 10 to August 13. The current share price is Ush2,510. Is this a 56% discount???. Apparently the rights are trading at Ushs350 which despite slightly knocking off on the discount, is still commendable value.

National Insurance Corporation (Uganda)’s IPO appears to have resurrected from the dead. Information is still scanty regarding this but my usual reminder is that it is pretty difficult to go wrong with IPOs in Sub-Saharan Africa.

On a sad note, a rumour going round is that the Crane Bank IPO will actually not happen.

At the board meeting of Baroda Uganda, a 10:1 share split was tabled which was approved.
As I write, Uganda Clays share split is scheduled for Monday 28 July 2008. For a share trading at a price of Sh10,150, splitting this between 100 to 1000 times would really enhance the liquidity of this share.

Can you believe the Tanzanians secretly listed the National Investment Company Limited (NICOL) Dar es salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) mid this month. For all the tools of macro-economic management, it is quite sad that the exchange controls were deemed the most appropriate. The trade off between the benefits of foreign direct investment .