The Lower Eastern Times Opening The Third Eye
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John Kibunga Kimani, a billionaire investor, has increased his ownership in telecommunications giant Safaricom by purchasing an additional 8.64 million shares, bringing his total holdings to 27.7 million units by December 2023.
This move aligns with the strategy of several investors who capitalized on the stock’s lower price to expand their portfolios.
Based on Safaricom’s closing price of Sh13.10 per share on Friday, Kimani’s new shares are valued at approximately Sh113.12 million. This additional stake solidifies Kimani’s position as the second-largest individual shareholder in East Africa, trailing only behind Chirag Menesh Solanki and Kalavati Menesh Solanki, who collectively hold 40.41 million units.
At current market prices, Kimani’s Safaricom stake is valued at Sh362.4 million, while the Solanki stake is valued at Sh529.3 million, representing 0.1 percent of the company’s total valuation of Sh524.9 billion.
Retail investors, who had gradually reduced their Safaricom holdings between the company’s initial public offering (IPO) in 2008 and 2019, have been replenishing their positions over the past two years, encouraged by the declining share price from previous highs of over Sh40.
Safaricom’s share price experienced a 20.6 percent decline to Sh13.90 between June and December 2023. With foreign corporate investors reducing their exposure to the stock, local investors seized the opportunity to increase their holdings.
Regulatory filings reveal that the volume of shares held by East African individual shareholders rose to 1.715 billion by December from 1.653 billion in June 2023. Local corporate investors, including Vodafone Kenya Ltd and the National Treasury, also saw their stake increase from 34.88 billion shares to 35.22 billion.
While foreign individual investors also boosted their holdings to 53.16 million units from 45.66 million, foreign institutional investors reduced their stake to 3.08 billion units from 3.49 billion units in June.
Safaricom remains the largest listed company on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), attracting both retail and institutional investors across various ownership bands. The company’s IPO in 2008 drew significant interest, with over 896,213 new brokerage accounts opened and small investors applying for 22.6 billion units of shares, representing 464 percent of the allocation.
Despite this, the number of shareholders holding 100,000 shares or less has declined over the years, from 822,122 in March 2009 to 533,172 in December 2023.
