Centum gets Kenya dealership for the high-end Courvoisier cognac

Centum has signed a distributorship contract with one of the world’s premium alcoholic spirits makers in a deal that will see one of the NSE-listed firm’s subsidiaries exclusively market brands like Courvoisier and Jim Beam locally. King Beverage, a subsidiary of Centum, will solely distribute the portfolio of Beam Suntory, a $4 billion (Sh408 billion) spirits maker based in Illinois. Centum declined to disclose the value of the deal [...]

KCB reports Sh19bn profit despite Sh6bn South Sudan hit

Kenya’s biggest bank by assets KCB on Tuesday announced a 16.4 per cent increase in its profits to Sh19.6 billion, even as it booked a Sh6.1 billion foreign exchange loss, mainly from its South Sudan operations where the national currency has been devalued by more than 100 per cent since December. The currency hit has seen KCB cut its cash dividend payout [...]

Fusion Capital gets regulator green light to raise Sh7.4bn

The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) has given Fusion Capital the greenlight to issue two development Real Estate Investment Trust (D-Reit) to complete its existing projects. Fusion Capital plans to raise a maximum of Sh7.4 billion to be split between commercial and residential developments [...]

Pension funds urged to keep NSE equities despite poor 2015 returns

Pension funds should not rush to ditch equities on the back of poor 2015 returns but instead stick to long-term investment plans. The chief executive of financial services firm Alexander Forbes, Sundeep Raichura, said Wednesday that pension fund investors ought to take a long-term view of investments, noting that previous trends from 2008 and 2011 have shown that stock market dips tend to be followed by extended periods of growth [...]

NIC’s bad loans double as profit rises to Sh4.4bn

NIC Bank’s bad debts more than doubled to Sh14.3 billion in the year ended December, weighing down the lender’s profit as provisions for loan losses jumped five-fold. The bank’s net profit rose 8.9 per cent to Sh4.4 billion in the period compared to Sh4.1 billion reported in 2014 [...]

Home Afrika contracts Egyptian firm to build Sh3bn sports complex at Migaa

Property developer Home Afrika has picked Egyptian company Wadi Degla to build and manage a Sh3 billion sports complex at its 775-acre Migaa gated golf community in Kiambu. Managing director Dan Awendo says the Egyptian company’s local subsidiary, Wadi Degla Kenya, has been contracted based on their expertise in building sports complexes [...]

Uchumi records Sh1bn pre-tax loss in six months amid declining sales

Uchumi Supermarkets has announced a pre-tax loss of Sh1 billion in the half-year ended December, widening the negative earnings of Sh262.3 million reported a year earlier. The company did not disclose its net loss position in its statement of accounts sent to the Nairobi Securities Exchange. The retail chain’s net sales declined 37.5 per cent to Sh4.2 billion, with cost of goods sold also falling by a similar margin to Sh3.3 billion [...]

Firm launches online retirees’ data platform

Financial services provider Alexander Forbes has launched a new online platform that allows pension fund trustees to digitise and store their pension data and records. The platform dubbed the eboard will act as a repository allowing the trustees to file board minutes, financial records and client data in cloud storage, thus eliminating the need to keep bulky paperwork records of thousands of pensioners in physical facilities [...]