Business Daily (Nairobi)
Washington Gikunju
15 July 2008
Nairobi — NIC Capital has appointed Mr Sundeep Vaghela as the new general manager following the exit of former managing director Kevin Bender.
NIC Capital is a fully owned subsidiary of the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) listed NIC Bank Group and consists of an investment banking and stock brokerage business.
Chris Kibe who held the position of senior associate and worked under Kevin Bender has also left the firm.
The management changes which took effect last week signal a change in the group's strategy to focus more on the stock brokerage end of their business in the capital markets and less on investment banking.
NIC Capital concluded its acquisition of a majority stake in a predominantly retail focused stockbrokerage firm, Solid Investment Securities, early this year.
Mr Bender retained his position as managing director of the merged investment banking and stockbrokerage business following the acquisition, and managed the cleaning up of the brokers' accounts.
Solid Investment was in financial distress prior to the acquisition, even attracting a warning from the Capital Markets Authority but benefited from a fresh capital injection of Sh100 million in April.
The warning to Solid Investment by the market regulator was later lifted in June and the firm, which has since changed its name to NIC Capital Securities, had its licence renewed for this year.
Mr Bender is a financial analyst and investment banker who previously worked at HSBC bank in New York and was more inclined towards investment banking rather than retail stockbrokerage business.
"The company has decided to focus more on brokerage business than on investment banking," said Mr Bender in an interview yesterday. His contract was due to expire next year.
Mr Sundeep was hired from Chase bank where he worked at the Treasury department.
He says his immediate focus will be to expand NIC Capital's clientele base, and increase the firm's trade volumes.
Market share
Turnover volumes from the NSE show that NIC Capital traded equities valued at Sh1.3 billion from January to June, with a market share of 1.2 per cent against the leading broker, Kestrel Capital's Sh16.6 billion in the same period with a 14.6 per cent total market share.
Mr Sundeep, however, said the local market is still not ripe for investment banking, which is dominated by a few players and which requires highly qualified staff to run.
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