Kakuzi Share Moves Market Despite Drop in Profit

Kakuzi closed its trading Thursday at KSh 419.00, topping the list of price gainers from its previous close of KSh 381, a gain of 10%. This is despite the listed agricultural exporter announcing a 14.9% drop in its half-year earnings to KSh 295.5 Million and shareholders receiving nil dividend payments.

Investors placed their bets on Kakuzi’s flagship avocado and macadamia crops, which show signs of increasing yields and earnings in the second half of the year. In the first six months of the year, these crops posted a 28.6% year-on year growth in sales to KSh 1.51 billion.

Available data shows that Kakuzi, with a market capitalization of KSh 8.21 Billion, begun the year with a share price of KSh 385.00 and has since gained 8.83% on that price, ranking it 44^th at the NSE in terms of year-to date performance.

Net margin fell to 19.5% from 29.6% in H1 2024 while the listed agro-based firm’s net working capital increased 11.3% to KSh 6.73 billion. Cash and cash equivalents were up 582% to KSh 890.3Million driven by a sharp swing in operating cash flows and lower financing outflows

Kakuzi is engaged in the cultivation of tea, packing and selling of avocados, livestock farming, growing and selling of pineapples, forestry and macadamia.

In Thursday trading at the NSE, the benchmark NASI, N10, NSE 20 and NSE 25 gained 0.7%, 0.8%, 0.2% and 0.3% respectively. Market Capitalization stood at US$ 20.6 billion while turnover closed sat KSh 530.7 Million.

The biggest price losers were led by Sanlam Kenya, which was down 9.9% to KSh 8.20 followed by BOC which declined 8.6% to KSh 90.75, Olympia which fell 7.9% to KSh 5.15, StanChart which was down 6.8% to KSh 312.25 and Eveready which was down 6.55 to KSh 1.16.

Other top gainers were NSE which was up 9.5% to KSh 14.40, Eaagads which rose 8.9% to KSh 19.55, Express which gained 6.7% to close at KSh 4.65 this Thursday and East African Portland Cement which climbed 6.4% to close the day at KSh 62.00 per share.

EABL was up 0.3% to KSh 216.25 and moved 714,400 shares, followed by Safaricom which sold 3, 784,800 shares at KSh 27.90 per share, Equity Group which traded 1,337,500 shares, KCB which moved 674,900 shares at KSh 54,00 per share, Absa Bank Kenya which traded 1,761,900 shares at KSh 19.90 and BAT which sold 76,900 shares at KSh 440.25 each.

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