10 June 2008
Nairobi — Buoyed by investors' overwhelming response to the Safaricom public offering, the Government is reviewing its parastatals with the aim of selling them through the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE).
Finance minister Amos Kimunya said on Tuesday that the move could enable Kenyans and other investors to buy into the parastatals.
"We are screening the remaining parastatals to see which ones we will sell to Kenyans and other investors," said Mr Kimunya while welcoming President Kibaki during the launch of the Safaricom shares at the NSE.
This could mean the Government divesting from parastatals such as Kenya Ports Authority and Kenya Pipeline Corporation by having them listed at the NSE.
The minister said the Treasury was also looking at how the Government could sell additional shares in the already listed companies without going through the "full-blown" secondary offer process.
This could enable it to sell additional shares in listed companies such as the Kenya Commercial Bank, KenGen, National Bank of Kenya, Mumias Sugar and Kenya Reinsurance Corporation.
The Safaricom IPO, in which investors from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda were treated as local investors, saw the Government raise Sh51 billion. It attracted about 800,000 investors whose demand amounted to Sh236 billion with the local investors contributing Sh160.6 billion and the international investors Sh76 billion. This saw the IPO oversubscribed by 453 per cent.
Meanwhile, the Capital Markets Authority chairman, Prof Chege Waruingi, will soon be launching an annual Capital Markets Authority University Challenge to enlighten young Kenyans on investing in the stock market as part of its investor education programme.
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