Safaricom Investment Co-operative joins race for NSE

Safaricom Investment Co-operative (SIC) has lined up to join 17 other firms at Ibuka, the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) programme that aims to help companies list on the bourse.

The move by the investment group makes it the first sacco to express interest in listing and raising hopes of attracting more cooperatives to the market, thus bringing more transparency to the sacco movement.

Nairobi County Director of Co-operatives Dolphin Aremo said SIC’s move was bold and a step towards promoting growth and development of co-operatives.

“From the ministry of Industry, Trade and Co-operatives, our role is to oversee the activities of all the co-operatives in this country. Safaricom Investment is one of the leading co-operatives and is the first one to take this bold step,” she said.

The firm says its next phase for growth is leveraging the NSE to access liquidity against investment.

“We have acquired and sold over 100 investment projects, including four major housing projects. SIC has issued ownership documents to over 3,000 of our investors in the last decade,” said Safaricom Investment Co-operative CEO Humphrey Njeru said.

SIC, which mainly does real estate projects, marketable Securities and private equity ventures, reported a 46 percent drop in net surplus of Sh6.9 million in 2018 from Sh12.8 million on higher administrative costs.

These shot up from Sh12 million to Sh27 million which included a Sh10 million tax penalty, doubling of office expenses, rise in rent and office software maintenance.

Cost of governance also doubled from Sh6.7 million in 2017 to Sh12.6 million on a rally of committee expenses and Sh0.7 million under provision for AGM meeting on top of Sh3.7 million for expenses of the annual meeting.

Business development costs also rose twofold on aggressive marketing budget,increase in funding research and development as well as strategic planning and training members.

Housing Income declined 57 percent from Sh124 million to Sh61 million attributed to reduction in house sales but land sales went up three percent from Sh315 million to Sh399 million.

The society recorded a total income from projects of Sh460 million which was mainly attributed to the increase in sale of land.