Afreximbank to Take Over KES 15Bn TransCentury Loans

Equities

Trading activity opened the week on a lower note compared to Friday’s closing at the Nairobi Securities Exchange.

The NASI dropped to 140.07 points, while the NSE-20 share index displayed a similar trend as it cut 18.82 points to settle at 3633.98 points. The NSE 25 share index declined too by 6.40 points to end at 3958.16 points.

Market capitalization decreased to 1987.32 billion shillings from 1992.83 billion shillings previously while the equity turnover almost halved to 0.65 billion shillings from 1.17 billion shillings on Friday on account of a reduction in volumes traded.

Cairo-based financier Africa Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) is set to take over Sh15 billion worth of loans from creditors of investment firm TransCentury. The multilateral development finance institution will also advance new loans to the Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firm to fund its expansion.

The deal will see Afreximbank acquire multi-billion-shilling loans from lenders including Equity and Standard Chartered Bank (Tanzania) that have provided long and short-term loans to TransCentury and its various subsidiaries.

Currency

The shilling on the other hand was stable against the US dollar due to support from charity dollar inflows. The shilling firmed up further against the Sterling and the Euro. We expect the shilling to hold steady and trade around similar levels, reinforced by the Central Bank’s interventions in the money markets, in case of any instability.