Author: David Indeje

Qatar Airways has been ranked the world’s best airline by Skytrax. The Skytrax World Airline Awards are independent and impartial, introduced in 1999. Travellers across the world vote in the largest airline passenger satisfaction survey, which ran from September 2019 to July 2021. Travellers were asked about the performance and quality of more than 350 global airlines. This is Qatar Airways’ sixth time winning the Skytrax top prize. This year it was also awarded World’s Best Business Class, World’s Best Business Class Seat, Best Airline in the Middle East, World’s Best Business Class Airline Lounge and Best Business Class Onboard…

Nation Media Group (NMG) on Wednesday said it has bought back over 17.1 Million of its ordinary shares as part of the 10% buyback of its 18,854,229 ordinary share buyback offer. The share buyback program began on 28th June 2021 and closed on September 24th 2021 at 3.00 pm. Each share was being bought at a price of KSh 25 per ordinary share. A buyback, also known as a share repurchase, is when a company buys its own outstanding shares to reduce the number of shares available in the open market. “The shares we buyback could help us in the…

Kenya Airways and South African Airways have signed a memorandum of co-operation aimed at forming a pan-African airline. “The future of aviation and its long-term sustenance is hinged on co-operation. KQ and SAA collaboration will enhance customer benefits by availing a larger combined passenger and Cargo network, fostering the exchange of expertise, innovation, best practice, and adopting home-grown organic solutions to technical and operational challenges,’’ Kenya Airways CEO Allan Kilavuka said in a statement Tuesday. “It will also enhance related Kenya and South Africa tourism circuits, which sectors account for significant portions of respective country growth domestic product, benefiting from…

The Central Bank of Kenya held interest rates steady at 7.0% on Tuesday citing a healthy economy supported by robust performance of construction, manufacturing, education, real estate and transport and storage sectors. This is the 1oth time the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has maintained the rate. “The economy is expected to rebound in 2021, supported by the continued reopening of the services sectors, recovery in manufacturing, and stronger global demand,” the CBK said. The National Treasury expects the economic growth to exceed 6% this year after contracting 0.3% last year. The Central Bank said it had taken note of inflation…

Kenya’s central bank injected Ksh 35.40 billion of liquidity into banks stepping up efforts to shore up some of the lenders. According to market analysts, this was in response to the heavy outflow of funds in liu of government borrowing and tax payments affecting the interbank rate. Stephanie Kimani, Research Analyst from NCBA Bank said the weighted average overnight rate accelerated to 6.50% on Friday, up 102.74bps in the week. The average interbank volumes declined by 2.0% to Ksh 16.9 billion, from Ksh 17.2 billion recorded the previous week. In addition, the demand for funds as well heightened as beckoned…

Kenya’s National Treasury has reopened three bonds to raise Ksh 60 billion in October for budgetary support. The Treasury Bonds, FXD1/2013/15, FXD3/2019/15 and FXD1/2021/25, have effective tenors of 6.4 years, 12.9 years and 24.7 years, respectively. The coupon rates are 11.3% for FXD1/2013/15, 12.3% for FXD3/2019/15 and 13.9% for FXD1/2021/25. The period of the sale runs until 5th October 2021. “We expect investors to prefer the longer-dated papers, FXD3/2019/15 and FXD1/2021/25, as they search for higher yields. The bonds are currently trading in the secondary market at yields of 11.7%, 12.7% and 13.5%, for FXD1/2013/15, FXD3/2019/15 and FXD1/2021/25, respectively,” Cytonn…