Kenyan Tobacco Stocks Decline 0.4%
Kenya’s price-weighted All-Share Index fell 0.22, or 0.4 percent, to 57.10 at the close in Nairobi today.
The shares of 10 companies advanced, 20 fell and 25 were unchanged. The following were among the most active stocks on the Nairobi Stock Exchange today.
British American Tobacco Kenya Ltd. (BATK KN), East Africa’s biggest cigarette maker, declined 1.7 percent to 176 shillings. The company loses 12 percent of sales annually to the illegal trade of counterfeit tobacco products, Cynthia Njagi, the company’s illicit trade manager, told reporters in Nairobi yesterday.
Co-operative Bank of Kenya Ltd. (COOP KN), Kenya’s fourth- largest lender by assets, rose 4.8 percent to 10 shillings after reporting a 17 percent increase in first-half profit.
Olympia Capital Holdings Ltd. (DNKN KN), a building materials holding company, declined 5.3 percent to 71 shillings.
Investors are still “unhappy” about the company’s performance after it said on Aug. 3 that it posted an annual loss, said Hardy Pemhiwa, chief executive officer of Amana Capital Ltd., a Nairobi-based investment management company.
Sasini Ltd. (STCL KN), a grower and processor of tea and coffee, retreated for the fifth trading session, falling 3 percent to 6.6 shillings.
The Tea Board of Kenya yesterday forecast production of the leaf will decline 6 percent this year because of a yield-cutting drought in the East African nation. That follows a prediction by the Kenya Tea Development Agency, which said on Aug. 14 that output of the leaf may slump “heavily” this year. Kenya is the world’s largest exporter of black tea.
“Tea prices are going up because of shortages, but the market is translating lower volumes to lower revenue for Sasini,” Pemhiwa said by phone from Nairobi today.
Copyright © August 19, 2009 Bloomberg
