Crown Paints’ Sh400m Kisumu plant set for January launch

Crown Paints will open a Sh400 million plant in Kisumu in January to cut costs and capture a larger share of the growing real estate market in the western region. The company is seeking to increase its output as well as reduce cost of transporting paint from its Nairobi plant. The Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed company will now supply all the counties in the area from the new plant that will be fully automated with a capacity of [...]

Investors keep off short-term T-bills as yields dip

Fixed-income investors largely stayed away from the six-month and one-year Treasury bills as yields came down further this week to approach the single-digit rates. The subscription, for the 182-day paper, was only Sh474 million against the Sh6 billion offered by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). For the 364-day paper, the subscription was also low at only Sh1.158 billion against an offer of Sh6 billion just as was the case for the 182-day T-bill [...]

Tea price falls at Mombasa auction on glut

The price of tea at the Mombasa auction declined marginally this week, reversing an improvement witnessed last week. The volume of tea offered for sale increased by seven per cent from 8.4 million kilogrammes last week to nine million kilos this week. The volumes have been growing for the last 10 weeks with stakeholders expressing fears a glut in the market could lead to low prices. Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) has warned the ongoing rains are likely to impact negatively on the price of the produce this financial year [...]

Kenya Power to set up new subsidiary for telecoms business

Kenya Power is set to establish a new subsidiary to handle its telecommunications business which includes a fibre optic network laid across the country. Kenya Power International Limited will handle Kenya Power’s telecoms business as well as spearhead the transformation of its energy research institute into a fully-fledged university. The new subsidiary will also oversee the elevation of the Kenya Power’s Institute of Energy Studies and Research [...]

Maize farmers reject State’s Sh2,300 price offer

The government is headed for a collision with maize farmers in the North Rift over prices for their produce. The farmers have taken issue with what they term as failure by the government to increase the price of maize above Sh2,300 per 90kg bag despite promises by President and his deputy when they toured the region [...]

Chinese firm sues Telkom in Sh1.8bn deal

A Chinese company has accused Telkom Kenya of blackmailing it into hiring an Armenian expatriate in return for a Sh1.8 billion tender for power maintenance at all Orange shops and sites. New International Consultancy Company Limited (NICCL) has asked the courts to stop Telkom from cancelling the lucrative tender it won in March after beating four other bidders, including China’s Huawei Technologies [...]

Kenyan credit bureau Metropol gets licence to start Uganda operations

Nairobi-based loan information-sharing service provider Metropol has finally been issued with a licence to commence operations in Uganda. Metropol Uganda will be headed by Elly Mukasa, who also owns a Kampala-based debt collection firm. Uganda is banking on credit referencing system to lower the rate of loan defaults — with the volume of bad loans declining by nearly a fifth to USh389.6 billion as at December 2014 [...]