Tomorrow Kenya Airways will host a press announcement and release the results of the recently-ended rights issue. The rights issue has been the biggest cash-call in the East African stock markets with nearly 1.5 billion new ordinary shares on offer for KES 14. If successful, the rights issue would raise about KES 20.7 billion, money they intend to use to expand their fleet and destinations.

As the rights issue went along there were many interesting things that happened: for a long time the KQ share traded for less than KES 14 in the open market, making it difficult to attract shareholders to their rights shares while they could get their shares for cheaper on the open market. Along the way, the Government of Kenya and KLM, two major shareholders in the national carrier affirmed their commitment to take up their rights in full, assuring investors that at least 43% of the rights shares would be taken up. There was also news of Citi, the international finance firm, through its bank Citibank, would underwrite the rights issue. The International Finance Corporation, IFC, had also committed to take up $25 million worth of the rights shares (read that article here) adding to the list of commitments to the rights shares.

There was also a lot of debate on social media concerning various issues such as the KES 620 million expense budget of the rights issue (read more on that here) with over KES 60 million spent on advertising services and over KES 40 million that Citi would overall make for their underwriting services. Some bloggers also poked holes into the KQ Rights, taking issue with top management’s apparent lack of equity in the company (read such an article here) and some Kenyans attempting to stop the rights issue in court but the case later getting dismissed by the court (read that article here).

The share has since recovered and yesterday closed at KES 15. Analysts believe that the rights shares will be fully taken up and possibly oversubscribed. Such news would mark a complete turn of events considering the scepticism that many Kenyans had.