Very true. But I usually feel these fears have no basis. My opinion

And to think that the market values EB at approx 100B and KCB at approx 60B; yet they both reported around and about the same PAT. These valuations are a total joke!!!!!

U can say that again, buy, buy, buy KCB S&L!!

KIRTI, you are wrong on this. Using Friday's prices, KCB was trading at a PE of 8.4, while NIC was at 9.6. SCBK (using the just released results) is trading at a PE of 14.8. Using 2009 results, SCBK was at an even higher PE of 16.39. I just can't see how you have arrived at your figures.

KCB's dividend yield is also the highest of the 3 banks you have cited.

I also echo the sentiments that NIC is not a peer of KCB due to size, dividend yield, liquidity etc. As an illustration, a purchase/sale order for 200,000 shares of NIC is enough to prevent a price drop/gain while this is puny where KCB is concerned.

KCB is indeed the BUY amongst the three!

WRONG!

I trust that you are aware of the principle of weighting when calculating the EPS for a share where the number of shares has changed during the reporting period.

EPS of 2.43 is based on the entire number of shares as of Dec-31-2010 whereas the associated level of capital was only available for part of the year i.e. from the date of listing of the rights issue shares (August 2010). You need to take this into account to get the correct EPS.