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Thursday 05th of May 2016 |
Morning Africa |
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If you are tracking the NSE Do it via RICHLIVE and use Mozilla Firefox as your Browser. 0930-1500 KENYA TIME Normal Board - The Whole shebang Prompt Board Next day settlement Expert Board All you need re an Individual stock.
The Latest Daily PodCast can be found here on the Front Page of the site http://www.rich.co.ke |
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This 1994 'Pulp Fiction' document reveals why British censors decided not to cut it Africa |
Jules: Looks like me and Vincent caught you boys at breakfast, sorry ’bout that. What’cha havin’? Brett: Hamburgers. Jules: Hamburgers. The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast.
[Jules grabs Brett’s burger and take a bite of it.] Jules: Uuummm, this is a tasty burger. Vincent, you ever try a Big Kahuna Burger? Vincent: No. Jules: Want a bite, they’re real tasty. Vincent: I ain’t hungry. Jules: Well, if you like burgers give ’em a try sometime. Me, I can’t usually get ’em myself because my girlfriend’s a vegetarian which pretty much makes me a vegetarian. But I do love the taste of a good burger. Mmm. You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in France? Brett: No. Jules: Tell ’em, Vincent. Vincent: Royale with cheese. Jules: Royale with cheese! You know why they call it that?
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Turkey PM Said to Give Up as Erdogan Pressure Insurmountable Law & Politics |
Turkey Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is expected to step down this month after losing a power struggle with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that’s sent financial markets plunging.
The two leaders held a late-night summit on Wednesday, and neither issued an official statement after it finished. But a person familiar with the matter said Davutoglu’s AK Party will hold a leadership contest within about 15 days -- and the premier won’t be a candidate. The person asked not to be identified because the decisions haven’t been made public. Turkey’s lira slid as much as 4.5 percent, its biggest decline since 2008.
“Erdogan continues to be the primary actor in Turkish politics,” said Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He “wanted a pliant prime minister and Davutoglu had ambitions to be his own man, but Davutoglu did not have a power base in the party.”
The lira slid as much as 4.5 percent on Wednesday against the dollar and closed the day 4 percent lower. On Thursday, it gained slightly and was trading at 2.9392 per dollar at 8:05 a.m. in Istanbul
Conclusions
Erdogan brooks no competition.
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Baiting the Bear: Russia and NATO by CONN HALLINAN Law & Politics |
Instead, an April 20 meeting between NATO ministers and Russia ended in “profound disagreements” according to alliance head Jens Stoltenberg. Russian ambassador to NATO, Alexander Garushko said that the continued deployment of armed forces on its borders makes it impossible to have a “meaningful dialogue.”
We are baiting the bear, not a sport that ever ends well.
Conclusions
Russia is an irrelevant challenge to the US when compared to China.
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Conflict Is Rwanda stirring rebellion in Burundi? IRIN Africa |
The Democratic Republic of Congo accuses neighbouring Rwanda of recruiting former M23 rebels to help oust Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza, adding a worrying international dimension to an already incendiary crisis.
Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende Omalanga alleges that Rwanda has been paying ex-M23 fighters, exiled in Rwanda and Uganda, to join Burundian opposition forces and help topple the government in Bujumbura.
“We want these people [the ex-M23 rebels] back home. There are some wrong elements from Rwanda who are recruiting them to go and fight in Burundi. We have arrested some of them in North Kivu (a province in eastern Congo), and we shall prosecute them,” Mende told IRIN.
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@Barclays Sells 12.2% Stake in African Unit for $879 Million Africa |
Barclays Plc said it sold about one-fifth of its stake in Barclays Africa Group Ltd. for about 13.1 billion rand ($879 million) as part of Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley’s plan to overhaul the British lender.
The bank sold 12.2 percent of shares to money managers, leaving it with a holding of 50.1 percent, it said in a statement on Thursday. The shares were bought for 126 rand each, a discount of about 11 percent to the average price over the past 30 days, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The sale is expected to increase Barclays’s common equity Tier 1 ratio, a measure of financial strength, by about 10 basis points.
“This represents an initial step towards delivering management’s previously stated strategy to sell down its stake in Barclays Africa Group to a level that will permit regulatory de-consolidation over the next two to three years,” Gary Greenwood, an analyst at Shore Capital Group Ltd., who rates Barclays a buy at 162 pence, said in a note. Barclays will only be able to reap significant capital benefits from the process once its stake drops below 20 percent, he said.
Staley, who took over last year, announced on March 1 the bank was retreating from Africa with other measures to raise cash, shrink globally and lighten its capital burden. One of the parties that’s expressed an interest in the African business is former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond, who is readying a bid via a consortium of investors including U.S. private-equity giant Carlyle Group LP. Diamond would combine the business with his African-banking company Atlas Mara Ltd.
Shares in Barclays Africa fell as much as 4.2 percent to 129.05 rand, and were trading 3.1 percent down at 130.52 rand in Johannesburg. A close at this level will be the lowest since April 7. The stock has declined 8.7 percent this year, the biggest drop among South Africa’s four biggest banks, which includes FirstRand Ltd. and Old Mutual Plc’s Nedbank. Barclays rose 0.6 percent to 163.35 pence in London.
“Given the size of the placement, the price seems about right,” said Garth Mackenzie, the founder of Johannesburg-based Traders Corner. “Book builds happen in an auction type process so this price was determined by the level of demand in the market.”
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As Diamond Preps Bid, South Africa Warns on `Play' for Its Banks Africa |
South Africa’s central bank isn’t comfortable with private equity companies owning stakes in the country’s lenders, Deputy Governor Kuben Naidoo said.
“As a regulator we won’t be comfortable with a private-equity play for any of the banks,” he told reporters in Pretoria on Tuesday. It may cause instability because private equity firms use leverage and need to create exit strategies, whereas banks need long-term commitments from shareholders with deep pockets, he said.
The comments come as Bob Diamond pulls together a group of investors, including U.S. private-equity giant Carlyle, for a potential bid for Barclays Plc’s controlling stake in its Johannesburg-based African business. Atlas Mara Ltd., the venture Diamond and Ugandan entrepreneur Ashish Thakkar formed to buy African banks, said last week that the firm is in talks on potentially buying Barclays Africa Group, which it could combine with its own operations.
Representatives from Atlas Mara held meetings with the Reserve Bank on Tuesday, according to reception records at the Pretoria-based regulator. Diamond, 64, who ran Barclays before his 2012 ouster during the Libor scandal, said on a conference call on April 26 that his consortium includes long-term strategic investors and that there is funding in place.
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Dollar Shortage Leaves ATMs Empty, Zimbabweans Without Cash @business Africa |
Banks in Zimbabwe, which abandoned its own currency in 2009 because of hyperinflation, have limited cash withdrawals and shut down some ATMs as the country’s ailing economy causes dollar supplies to evaporate, threatening to result in company failures.
Lines of people are growing outside banks in the capital, Harare, as cash-strapped residents try get money to pay for everything from school fees to groceries. The shortage highlights the struggle President Robert Mugabe’s government faces in resuscitating an economy that’s half the size it was 15 years ago, according to government estimates, with about 90 percent of the population out of formal employment.
“The problem is related to Zimbabwe’s balance of payments,” Sam Malaba, the chief executive officer of Agricultural Bank of Zimbabwe Ltd., said by phone from Harare. “We’re importing more than we’re exporting and we can’t print money because we use mainly the U.S. dollar.”
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Breaking news... Zim to introduce bond notes as cash shortage bite Africa |
Zimbabwe says it will introduce local “bond notes” and has tightened daily withdrawals to ease an acute shortage of cash, central bank governor, John Mangudya said on Wednesday.
The public will now only be able to withdraw a maximum of $1000, Euro 1000 and R20,000 from their accounts daily.
Mangudya has also announced that, with effect from May 5, 40 percent of all new US dollar receipts will be converted to rand, “in order to restore and promote the wide usage of currencies in the multicurrency basket”.
The RBZ governor did not give a specific date for the introduction of the bond notes, but only said this will be in “over two months’ time”.
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18-APR-2016 Chase Bank and the Story of the 3 Wise Monkeys Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru Kenyan Economy |
Chase Bank was the 11th largest at the time it was placed into receivership on April 7, shortly after announcing restated earnings with a qualified audit opinion [Deloitte] which was deliberately miniaturised in the restated Earnings Release. Mr Kabui said in his statement to the police that the so-called insider loans were assets held in Chase Iman’s joint ventures financed under Musharakah. The Pertinent Question to ask Mr. Kabui and his Board is when these assets were classified as ''Musharakah''
The entire Tale [that has been spun] took me back to the Story of The three wise monkeys. Together they embody the proverbial principle "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" The three monkeys are Mizaru, covering his eyes, who sees no evil; Kikazaru, covering his ears, who hears no evil; and Iwazaru, covering his mouth, who speaks no evil.
You have to ask yourself What is the duty of a Board? Was there a functioning Board at Chase Bank or even at Imperial Bank? Or Just a Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru?
Where was the Credit Committee? Dishing out 84.96% of your Core Capital on an unsecured basis to an Insider has to surely pass through some kind of process? Because if it didn't then as Patrick Njoroge said Chase Bank was a ''mama mboga'' and not a Bank.
The Truth is that the last line of Defence is the External Auditor. And Deloitte are to be commended for calling a Spade a Spade. The calculation has entirely changed for Audit Companies the world over. KPMG threw the Guptas over because of the reputational risk. Deloitte could not put their name to a ''cockamamie'' [ridiculous, pointless, or nonsensical: full of wild schemes and cockamamie ideas] story.
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DTB raises stake in Uganda unit with Sh1.1bn injection @bd_africa Kenyan Economy |
DTB Group has invested an additional Sh1.1 billion in its Ugandan unit, raising its stake in the subsidiary.
The Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firm participated in DTB Uganda’s rights issue in April that raised a total of Sh1.4 billion.
DTB, which previously held a 56.97 per cent stake in the subsidiary, did not say to what level its equity had jumped after the cash call.
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Forex reserves hit Sh770bn to boost value of Kenya shilling @bd_africa Kenyan Economy |
According to the CBK weekly bulletin the reserves stood at $7.62 billion (Sh770 billion) as at April 22, amounting to 4.96 months of import cover.
This is an increase of 7.7 per cent from $7.07 billion — amounting to 4.5 months of import cover — at the same period last year.
The increase in reserves is also more than Sh100 billion ($1 billion) compared to the level at the height of the shilling’s depreciation crisis last September and October when the regulator had to intervene by injecting various amounts of forex into the market.
CBK governor Patrick Njoroge recently said lower oil prices, a falling current account deficit and more exports had contributed to the higher levels of reserves.
“There is the impact of lower oil prices that have improved the balance of payments. We see the current account deficit this year closing at eight per cent of GDP. Inflows from tourism and exports like tea and horticulture are strengthening,” said Dr Njoroge.
The CBK boss also said investors had brought significant amounts of foreign cash into the country recently.
“There are also portfolio inflows. Investors are attracted to invest long term because of the favourable environment. The exchange rate has been stable,” said Dr Njoroge.
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