Marketing group WPP-Scangroup reported a full year profit of Ksh612 million on April 11, and its stock jumped 71% at the Nairobi Securities Exchange on the same day.
With the firm’s profit rising by 28% year on year, the company saw its share price at the bourse rise from Ksh11.70 to end Thursday’s trading session at Ksh20.05.
The bump saw the firm easily register the highest stock price gain at the bourse, with none of the other listed companies posting a gain of over 5%.
Kenya Power and Lighting (KPLC), who followed Scangroup on the gainers tab, saw a 4.27% rise while Eaagads, Stanbic and Stanlib Fahari I-Reit registered gains of 2.94%, 2.08% and 1.88% respectively.
Scangroup released its full year results on April 11 which had indicated that its market in Kenya had declined in 2018.
When compared to the previous year, the Kenyan market, which is Scangroup’s largest market in Africa, contributed 62% to total revenue. In 2017, the country had achieved a 73% input to the firm.
“The group faced a challenging economic environment during 2018 in Kenya … as a result of reductions in expenditure by majority of the Group’s key clients,” Scangroup said.
NSE’s decliners on Thursday
Elsewhere at the bourse, the HF Group saw the heaviest drop at closing bell, falling 6.04% to Ksh4.51.
Flame Tree Group was also not as fired up, as it shed 5.02% to settle at Ksh2.65.
Sanlam Kenya was down 2.56% at a share price of Ksh19 while Crown Paints dulled 2.44% to drop to Ksh80.
In terms of volumes, Safaricom moved the most shares at 3.3 million shares, while Equity Group, the NSE and Centum Investment were also some of Thursday’s biggest movers.
The bourse had posted an equity turnover of Ksh192 million, falling from the previous session which had stood at Ksh758 million.
All indices finished in the green zone as follows,
- The NSE 20 share Index was up 82.65 points to stand at 2918.81.
- All Share Index NASI edged up 0.09 points to settle at 158.29.
- The NSE 25 Share index gained 12.18 points to stand at 3967.45.
Investor wealth stood at Ksh2.36 trillion, while the bonds market saw bonds worth Ksh1.7 billion transacted.
