Personal Moment (1)

I’ve tried as much as possible not to merge my personal affairs with my blogging one. So far I’ve succeeded. But sometime they tend to converge, especially on twitter [a micro blogging platform]. I’ve contemplated creating another blog for my personal journals, but I’m too lazy for that too. What’s with all this social engagements online? With twitter, facebook and linkedln I think I’ve had enough of social networking sites. I need more offline contacts and I’m not so good when it comes to sharing matters close to the heart online, mine or any other.

In the last few months I’ve realized it easier to make more head way with offline networks than online. Online networks appear larger than they actually are. I’m currently job hunting and most of my offline contacts seems to be working better. That brings me to another issue, Job Interviews. So far I’ve attended a few and some of the questions interviewers ask are just plain pathetic. I’m only asking for a job, its not like I’m at Heaven’s Gate begging to get in. Give me a break Mr. Interviewer and stop playing angel Gabriel or whoever it is at the Gate.

They say you’ve got to admit you have a problem in order to solve it. Mine I think is a career-identity-crisis, if there is any thing like that. These few interviews I’ve been from quite a diverse range of positions, ranging from accounting, project management (NGO) to a business writer. In the name of all wild thought I’ve ever had, I’ve never thought of myself becoming a full time business writer, with the reporting and all. OK, I write here and a few other places, but I’ve never considered my writing to be that much, if not just plain boring rumbles here and there. And my grammar is not the best [as you can see :) ]. But someone somewhere thinks I can make a good writer. Let me wait and see how that goes.

Can someone help me get a career counselor? And how much do they charge to put people like me back on the right path?

Earth quakes happen to be the order of the day for the first two months of 2010. Started with Haiti, now Chile and then? I hope it doesn’t hit Nairobi. Only God knows the state of our buildings. I’m actually considering moving to the suburbs – somewhere like Syokimau (kwa mama-round) or Rongai (kwa Nkoroi). Just somewhere safe. You can’t trust these estate flats so much; some of them were built by shady contractors. A man can be paranoiac, right?

(Don't) Save Ngenye Kariuki

A response to Jaindi Kisero

Jaindi Kisero had a piece in yesterday’s Daily Nation putting out a pro-stockbrokers’ argument on why Ngenye Kariuki should not be allowed to fall. In my very humble opinion, I believe his argument has no basis whatsoever and using some excerpt of Jaindi’s articles I give my arguments why not.

To begin with his opening statement just doesn’t sound right:

Ngenye Kariuki stockbrokers, which has just been put under statutory management, must not be allowed to collapse. The dent to public confidence in a market that is yet to recover from protracted bearish conditions could be severe.

It beats logic why an inefficient, unscrupulous broker should be saved from collapse just because of the general fact that if not, market confidence will receive a dent. It has been known for quite a while [as far back as 2007] that Ngenye Kariuki has been in troubled waters.

…compared to the brokers which have recently collapsed, the net insolvency amount in Ngenye Kariuki is much lower.

I don’t see how this is even an argument for helping out this broker. Does Jaindi mean that since the insolvency faced by other failed brokers was much higher they should be left to collapse? Looking at the grace period given to Ngenye Kariuki by CMA to put its house in order, I wonder why they were totally unable to fix this ‘low insolvency’ problem. Two deals fell through (first with a Tsavo securities consortium and later with Equatorial IB) and one with Eco-bank on the table, CMA still deemed it fit to place them under statutory management. In fact, CMA gave the broker too much leeway on this.

… Right now, there is a strong rumor in the market that another stockbroker is in trouble and may be suspended from trading. The latest I have gathered, however, is that the said broker is in negotiation with a finance house with very deep pockets for a possible buy-out. How I hope this deal comes through! I shudder at the prospect of the collapse of another stockbroker.

Now, such a rumor is more likely to cause even greater panic than one shaky brokerage firm collapsing. I believe by just publishing it in a nation-wide newspaper indicates the lack of seriousness in this market. I consider such information quite material and should be made public as soon as possible or else it amount to ignoring a severe case of insider trading. As much as this said rumor may be common knowledge to interested parties living in Nairobi, the same may not be said of the rest of Kenya and may further aggravate on the lack of confidence in the NSE (problems of a centralized economy)

… On paper, a good number of stockbrokers are well-capitalized. But where is the business to sustain them? Just take a look at the turnover numbers for 2007 and compare them with the present trends. Brokers are earning peanuts in fees from equities, the bedrock of our capital markets. Why aren't we debating about a government bail-out? In the US, the government responded to widespread distress among intermediaries by pouring in billions into Wall Street.

These same brokers were earning ‘peanuts’ before the stocks boom. Poor corporate management and incompetence has seen them succumb to this predicament and there is no way a copy-paste government bail-out from Wall Street would help them. It would be just another case of grand corruption that, like many others, won’t be solved. Comparing stock brokers now and in 2007 (when the market peaked) is not bright idea. I would rather compare it with the late 90’s when the economic and political standings were more similar. And we are debating about a bail-out. There’s a stimulus package that no one knows where or what its going to do. If this is one of the things, It’s a big NO for me.

…If we can bail out Uchumi and Pan Paper, why not respond in the same manner to cure widespread distress in capital market intermediaries?

Have you checked out New-KCC and KMC lately? they are knee deep in financial troubles and seems like somebody needs to bail them out (again)

In conclusion, I think any form of government bail-out should not even be considered for these brokers. It would be simply using tax-payers money to reward those who have robbed them off their investments. Why then not just bail-out pyramid-schemes? Unlike the Wall Street cases, the Kenya government is not endowed with huge reserves to waste on bailing-out inefficient brokers who can easily be bought out by other interested parties such as banks and other interested investor.

Changes at Nakumatt

The last two years have been tough for Nakumatt. First came the Thika road demolition, then the downtown fire tragedy and the wetland encronchment claim on westlands Nakumatt Ukay. All these have cost the supermarket chain quite a fortune. Its major recent expansions have been into Kampala and Rwanda, where they seem to be doing well.

In the wake of news that Nakumatt CEO, Mr. Atul Shah, was named one of the top 50 emerging market business leaders by Financial Times, it has emerged that its top management has been resigning over the recent months. Including their media friendly COO, Thiagarajan Ramamurthy.

Probably all this is linked to the incoming new investor, who is set to take up 30% shareholding in the firm at a cost of about US$25 million. The other main shareholders being Mr, Shah - the CEO and Hotnet Ltd – associated with Harun Mwau [Assistant Minister for Transport]. Like many other, Nakumatt’s bid to list on the NSE has taken a back sit until further notice.