Safaricom (NSE: SCOM) shares charged higher in Friday’s session after its board announced its new chief executive Peter Ndegwa to close the week as the Nairobi Securities Exchange’s (NSE) top mover at 33.3% of the week’s traded value.
On Friday, the listed telco’s stock closed with 47 million shares valued at Ksh 1.3 billion transacted at between Ksh28.25 and Ksh28.70 compared with Thursday’sclose of 3 million shares worth Ksh86 million at between Ksh28.40 and Ksh28.60.
Peter Ndegwa was named as chief executive following the death of Bob Collymore in July. His appointment becomes effective on April 1, 2020.
The NSE Turnover closed high with a 1.45Billionm turnover against the 856Mn turnover recorded Thursday.
The Market traded volume increased with 38.4Million shares exchanging hands against 23.1Mn shares traded Thursday. The NSE All-share Index (NASI) and the NSE20 share indices rose by 0.22 and 5.60 points to close the day at 150.29 and 2489.95 points respectively.
“The NASI, NSE 20 and NSE 25 share price indices increased by 1.2 percent, 1.1 percent, and 2.0 percent, respectively, during the week. Market capitalization increased by 2.4 percent following the listing of 793.8 million NCBA shares on October 22.,” said the Central Bank in its Weekly Report Oct 25, 2019.
On Wednesday, Safaricom marked its 19th Anniversary with a renewed commitment To Be Simple, Transparent, Honest Across its Entire Operations.
“Today, we are starting afresh and going forward we aim to be even more Simple, Transparent and Honest in everything that we do. For our customers, we are a Safaricom that is there, For You,” said Michael Joseph, acting chief executive, Safaricom.
Safaricom is 35 percent owned by South Africa’s Vodacom, controls about 62 percent of Kenya’s mobile market, with 30 million subscribers.
The telco will release its half-year 2020 results on 1st November 2019.
In its half-year results in 2019, it recorded a 20.2 percent growth in net profit to Ksh 31.5 billion for the six months ended September 30 (2018/2019) on the back of a strong performance in mobile money M-Pesa and data.
