BY PETER WANYONYI Listening to Hollywood’s clan of movie superstars gush over South African electric-car entrepreneur – and erratic showman – Elon Musk, one would think that the electric car is a brand new innovation in the transport sector. One would be wrong: electric cars have been manufactured since the 1890s, and outnumbered cars with an internal combustion engine (ICE) until Henry Ford’s Model T arrived in 1908. From then on, the lower cost and superior range of ICE cars quickly became a dominating factor. In 1912, a petrol-powered car cost $950 (Sh96, 000), while an equivalent electric car cost…
Author: Nairobi Business Monthly Reporter
BY VICTOR ADAR Laptops and desktop computers aside, mobile phones too need virus protection. The work place of today is where the Smartphone is being used along laptops and desktop computers. That’s why Check Point, a network cybersecurity vendor, is making it easy for users by providing a data based breakdown of new and prevalent threats, as well as the ways of dealing with the risks. Threat intelligence drawn from the company’s ThreatCloud World Cyber Threat Map, which tracks how and where cyber attacks are taking place in real time has left people scratching the back of their heads with…
Digitalization and the rise of the platform economy are rapidly changing the ways firms do business. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), these changes affect most aspects of their daily operations, including their access to information, suppliers, clients, finance and logistics. They present major commercial opportunities – but also potentially fatal threats. Meanwhile, political and economic actors in many places are facing an unprecedented loss of trust. The current technological revolution, if not managed well, could worsen this loss of trust and add fuel to the existing backlash against trade. Released last month, the 2018 edition of the International Trade…
BY DAVID ONJILI There was a problem in coding computerized systems that was projected to create havoc in computers worldwide at the beginning of the year 2000. But the coming years left more and more people scratching the back of their heads after the transition from December 31 1999 to January 1 2000 that was thought would be rough just ended up being smooth. Alarms and anxiety that included programming corrections were the order of the day. It was all of the Millennium Bug, which should be fresh in our minds. How are Kenya’s small and medium sized companies taking…
This is an update on research conducted in 2016 whose analysis showed the market had an average rental yield of 7.0% with the residential sector recording average total returns of 7.9% p.a. (an average capital appreciation of 1.6% per annum and rental yield at 6.3%), whereas the office and retail sectors recorded average rental yields of 5.9% and 8.9%, respectively. We update those findings in light of the recent developments within the county where this year, the real estate market recorded average rental yields of 6.2%, with the residential sector recording average total returns to investors of 7.2% (rental yields…
BY ANTONY MUTUNGA After years of trading shares with no physical trading floor, Kenya finally got a bourse when the London Stock Exchange (LSE) officials accepted to recognize the set-up of the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) then known as the Nairobi Stock Market as an overseas stock exchange in 1953. Even though the bourse was used by the East African Community (EAC) – Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania – a majority of the listed public sector securities were from Kenya. For example, by 1968 the number of listed public sector securities stood at 66% whereby 45% were for the Kenyan government…
Experts say that Kenya has possibly the most developed security market in East Africa. The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) is ranked fourth in economic size, behind Johannesburg (JSE), London (LSE) and Lagos (LSE). But why do we have alternative markets, like derivatives, in South Africa but not in Kenya? There was robust activity at the stock exchange with a number of companies listing at the market in the push for privatisation, especially in the 1980s. The most notable companies listed were Kenya Commercial Bank and National Bank of Kenya. Then there was a lull until the 2007 when Safaricom Initial…
By Victor Adar There is a debate going about why uptake of products of the Capital Market Authority has been low. It is the story of more of companies delisting rather than listing, a shift that could serve to discourage investment at the bourse. The fact that big corporates, including Bidco and Airtel, are not listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), more likely than not sends the message that things may not so rosy. Further, what’s keeping fresh companies from listing? Is it because of low profitability, or losses? Performance of the top 20, highlighted in the NSE 20…
BY NBM WRITER Discrimination is not a result of like or dislike. As Dr Claud Anderson observes, all forms of discrimination occur in the absence of economic empowerment. “To earn recognition, the black man must first achieve economic wellness. The surplus gained from creating wealth should then be invested in politics.” In his five stages of liberation, he doesn’t give much regard to voting as a source of citizen power, advocating, instead, for the buying of every politician of influence and ability to look out for the rights of the small man. “Wealth and political power deliver the integrity of…
By David Wanjala If you have never believed elections are rigged in Kenya, Thursday September 20 provided the perfect testimony. The vote in the National Assembly on President Uhuru Kenyatta’s austerity and tax proposals re-enacted the full scripts of most of our seasonal general elections, where losers are blatantly declared winners after results of peaceful voting are corrupted at the tail end of the process to the whims of a few officials entrusted with overseeing the exercise. Of fundamental importance, however, is how the media has been exposed by the events on the floor of the National Assembly, on the…