Family Bank earnings hit Sh1.8 billion
Strong lending to SMEs helped boost Family Bank’s interest income leading to a 46 per cent growth in net profit for the year ended December 2014. The interest income growth was from SMEs. The bank expects to spend Sh1 billion to upgrade its IT infrastructure to handle the expected bigger number of customers including those on the mobile platform […]
Jamii Bora Bank profit falls 79pc on expansion, higher taxes
Jamii Bora Bank, which lends mostly to small and medium enterprises, has recorded a 79.5 per cent drop in after-tax profits, following increased expenses associated with branch expansion and higher tax charge. Profits after tax took a hit from exhaustion of a four-year grace period set to recover losses made in 2010. The bank is open to applying for an extension from the taxman to recover the losses […]
Safaricom touches new high on NSE
Telecommunications giant Safaricom touched a new all-time high of Sh16.10 in intra-day trading on a volume of 6.6 million shares on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE). Analysts at Standard Investment Bank (SIB) attributed the increase in local investor demand […]
Jubilee Holdings net profit up 24pc on premiums rise
Insurance group Jubilee Holdings reported a 24 per cent jump in net profit for the year ended December, helped mainly by increased premiums. The performance saw it edge past Britam, which had Sh10.1 billion in premiums in the same insurance class. The firm has pegged its growth strategy on expanding its market share in the local insurance industry besides property investments and potential acquisitions […]
Bank owners’ return on investment low after capital injection
Bank owners received a lower return for their investment in 2014 compared to the previous year following increased capital injections. Data from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) shows that the bank posted a return on equity (ROE) of 26.6 per cent lower than the previous year’s 28.8 per cent despite a 13.3 per cent jump in pre-tax profits. ROE calculates how much profit a company generates with each shilling of shareholders’ funds while ROA shows the profit that a company earns in relation to the overall wealth that it has created from its business such as loans […]
NCPB seeks Sh500 million more to buy maize from farmers
The National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) is seeking Sh500 million more to buy this season’s maize from farmers. This would be the first time in the last five years that the board has bought more than two million bags. The new money will make it possible for the cereals board to buy an extra 217,391 bags of the commodity at Sh2,300 per bag […]
CBK’s foreign exchange reserves drop by Sh16bn
Central Bank of Kenya’s foreign exchange reserves have fallen by Sh16 billion ($173 million) in the first three weeks of March, at a time the regulator has stepped in to support the shilling with direct dollar sales. The current reserves represent 4.57 months of import cover, down from 4.7 months cover at the beginning of the month. The shilling has been slightly stronger since the latest CBK intervention. Tuesday, it was quoted at 91.90/92 by commercial banks at opening of trading, and by the close was stronger at 91.75/85 to the dollar […]