Closing Bell: Limuru Tea Crosses 1000 Mark At The NSE
Limuru Tea Company Limited (LIMT) crossed the KES 1000 barrier today at the close of the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), becoming the second company to do so after British American Tobacco Kenya Limited (BAT). Its share price rose 3.03% from the previous close of KES 990.00 to KES 1020.00.
Limuru leapfrogs BAT as the most expensive share in closing price value at the NSE. BAT which had hit an intra-day high of KES 1050.00 ended the day at KES 950.00 a 4.43% drop from yesterday's KES 994.00. Although BAT's volume weighted average price for today was KES 1047.74.
2000 Limuru Tea shares changed hands this Thursday. The company's share price has risen 100% from KES 500 at the beginning of 2014. Although on slight volumes. Its daily volumes have mostly ranged from 100-300 shares and occasionally gotten to 2000 shares. Limuru tea has 1.2 million issued shares.
The rise in share price is despite Limuru's half year results indicating a 42.55% decline in pre tax profit to KES 10.79 million in the six months to June 30, 2014. This is in comparison to the KES 18.81 million it had registered in June 2013. The profit reduction was caused by the fall in tea prices, that has been experienced at the Mombasa tea auction since January this year. Tea prices have been depressed because of an oversupply of tea globally.
Nevertheless, Limuru tea owns over 677 acres of prime agricultural land 4 km east of Limuru town. The value of this land is what may be attracting investors and driving up the tea grower's stock price. This is more so if the real estate boom in Kenya is taken into context. Real estate's contribution to Kenya's GDP is now at 10.6% up from 4.9 % before this year's re-basing.
Limuru's share price performance since January this year is given below:
The winners:
The other top gainers were: Eveready East Africa Limited (EVRD), Sasini Tea And Coffee Limited (SASN), Kakuzi Limited (KUKZ) and Olympia Capital Holdings Limited (OCH). They closed at KES 3.80, 13.90, 215.00 and 6.75 respectively.
The losers:
Other companies that shed value were: Kapchorua Tea Company Limited (KAPC), East African Portland Cement Company (EAPC), Scangroup Limited (SCAN) and Mumias Sugar Company Limited (MSC). They ended the day at KES 160.00, 64.00, 42.00 and 1.70 respectively.
Market snapshot
As at 3.10 pm today.
Most shares traded:
Safaricom Limited (SCOM), Equity Bank Limited (EQTY), Kenya Commercial Bank Limited (KCB), Kenya Airways Limited (KQ) and Mumias Sugar Company Limited (MSC). 6.57 million Safaricom shares changed hands today representing 28.60% of all shares traded.
Indices
Both the NSE 20 share index and the NSE All Share Index (NASI) gained today. Rising 0.23% and 0.20%, each closed at 5,233.42 and 159.68 respectively.
