Rocky future for Shareholders as Centum Issues Profit Warning

Centum Investments has issued a profit warning for the full financial year ending March 31st, 2018.

According to a statement from the investment firm, the lower asset valuation, political uncertainty, reduced access to credit and unconcluded transaction informed the profit warning.

With the warning, the company now expects to post earnings 25 percent lower than what was reported at the same time in the previous year.

“This is consistent with the performance of the Kenyan real estate market where real estate generally and commercial property, in particular, appreciated in value at a lower rate in 2017 on account of the political environment and the reduced access to credit by the private sector,” said the CEO James Mworia.

In 2017, Centum registered 8.3 billion shillings in profit, a drop by 16 percent from 9.9 billion shillings in 2016.

“The decrease in revaluation gains has no impact on cash flow generated from operations,” said Mr. Mworia.

Centum also failed to realize gains on disposal of investments which have been categorized under the ‘unconcluded transactions’ by the end of March this year.