As Bob Collymore quashed rumours that he was set to leave the trillion shilling firm this August, the company’s stock managed to tick upwards, by 0.05cents.
The bourse closed at 3:08pm, but earlier in the day just before lunchtime, the Safaricom CEO had announced that his contract with the firm had been extended for another year.
By closing bell at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) on May 23, the giant telco posted Ksh 26.15 as against the previous session’s Ksh26.10. This represented a meagre 0.19% bump.
Its trading had reached a day high of Ksh26.25 and had traded as low as Ksh26.05.
The May 23 closing price now means that the Safaricom share price has averaged a share price of around Ksh27.40 over the last 18 trading days since it was first rumoured that Collymore was exiting the telco.
Over the 18 days prior to speculation over the Safaricom CEO’s tenure, the firm had posted an average of Ksh27.85.
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Thursday’s trading however saw the trillion shilling company transact lower volumes as against its recent history on the bourse.
Regularly moving shares in the millions, Safaricom managed to move 640,200 shares. This however was still enough to see it rank in the top five of the day’s volume movers.
The deals were valued at Ksh16.7 million, which contributed 6.61% of the the day’s overall traded value (Ksh253 million) at the NSE.
In contrast, the listed company had contributed 46.64% to the day’s previous trading session.
Safaricom was formed in 1997 as a fully owned subsidiary of Telkom Kenya. In 2000, UK telco Vodafone acquired a 40% stake in the firm, leaving the Kenyan government with the remaining 60%.
In 2008 however, the government offered the public 25% stake, leading to it being listed on the NSE.
Vodafone’s stake is currently divided as 35% for Vodacom and 5% in Vodafone’s favour.
Safaricom is popularly known for its mobile money transfer service M-Pesa, which has become so profitable for the firm that it could contribute 50% to the firm’s earnings in around five year’s time.
Its most recent results saw the giant telco post a full year profit of Ksh63.4 million.
The company is the most valuable firm on the NSE. As the only trillion shilling public firm, it is approximately valued at Ksh1.05 trillion.
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