@slycat,
Beware when buying stocks in companies controlled and managed by a European shareholder. For they always find clever ways of repatriating profits first to the european shareholder before considering you. This is normally done through; price transfers,non-competetive fees for technical support,consultancy fees,charges for licences,single sourced loans (from europen shareholder) paid in hard currencies,expensive training etc.Eg,M-Pesa. Safcom does not make a cent from it; Vodafone does. They found a clever way of leasing it from Vodafone. If u ask me,I wud tell u that u can easily develop a money-tranfer prooduct without buying a licence,others have - this is an old repatriation trick.
My take with SafCom is that they are making money like a bandit,yet,it never get reflected in the SafCom shares ... go figure!
Excellent observation slycat
My biggest worry regarding KenGen IPO was the $560M proposed loan to increase power capacity,this here would have been the straw to suck KenGen dry ... and therefore,they reasons for staying away from it ...
Take a company like George Williumson,from its humble beginnings in East Africa,namely Tanzania,it became an international conglomerate,spread across Europe,Asia ... it currently holds enormous farms in Kenya growing tea with just a railroad from the factories exporting tremedous amount of products,mostly tea (btw Kapchorua Tea is a wholly owned subsidiary of Williamson Tea Kenya) ... once they fill the rail containers with tea chests,and pays workers slave wages ... you'll surely never see those profits as the products are sold overseas,and their profits will never be reflected in share prices,these outfits are just a conduit...
Again excellent point @slycat.