List of Firms That Issued Profit Warnings in 2018

A total of 15 companies issued profit warnings for the financial year ending December 2018, just showing how gloom the economy might be for the year 2019.

Companies that issue profit warnings often means that their earnings will fall by at least 25 percent as compared to financial results of the previous year.

Most companies that were doing well before shocked investors with their profit alerts with analysts saying this might hurt the economy and some companies might even be faced off.

Kenya, with an estimated unemployment rate of 39.1 percent, might face more challenges as more companies shun away from employing new people or as some of them choose to close shop and scale down on the work force.

Companies that have issued profit warnings are:

1. Britam Holdings
2. East African Portland Cement
3. HF Group
4. Kenya Power
5. National Bank of Kenya
6. Sanlam
7. Bamburi Cement
8. Carbacid
9. Deacons East Africa
10. Crown Paints
11. Kapchorua Tea
12. Sameer Africa
13. UAP Holdings
14. Williamson Tea
15. Kenya Re

Most of the companies that have issued profit warnings are in the insurance sector. The insurance sector in Kenya is still at an infant stage with the penetration being below 3 percent. Some of the factors that have contributed to this being inadequate information, negative attitude towards insurance firms and reputation of some insurance firms.

The National Bank of Kenya is the only bank among listed financial institutions to have issued a profit warning. NBK had shown great strides of recovery after registering a 190 percent growth in profits the previous year.

Kenya Power, which enjoys the monopoly of setting its own power price and has no competition in the power sector in Kenya, announced a profit alert over debts and investment in the rural electrification program that was ‘abrupt and took lots of cash’ from them.