Kenya | - Part 29

East Africa Oil Pipelines Boon to Private Funders, AfDB Says

NAIROBI, Capital Markets in Africa: Oil pipelines planned in Kenya and Uganda to ferry crude from fields to port present opportunities for private financiers keen to gain a foothold in East Africa’s energy industry, the African Development Bank says. “Nobody has ever, ever lost money financing pipelines,” Gabriel Negatu, the Abidjan-based lender’s regional director for East Africa, said in an interview in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, on Sept. 23. If there is oil flowing, “it’s generally viable,” he said. East…

Kenyan Lender CBA to Take Mobile-Bank Service Deeper Into Africa

Posted on by The Editorial Team

NAIROBI, Capital Markets in Africa: A Kenyan lender that transformed from an also-ran into the country’s biggest deposit-taker, mainly through a mobile-phone banking service started four years ago, plans to use the product as a beachhead to expand outside its East African home base. Commercial Bank of Africa Ltd., which also has units in Tanzania and Uganda, is seeking to export its M-Shwari mobile-phone service as part of a strategy to eventually have operations in 16 African…

Kenyan Geothermal Gets $60 Million From African Development Bank

Posted on by The Editorial Team

NAIROBI, Capital Markets in Africa: The African Development Bank will lend $60 million to finance a geothermal power project in Kenya. The funds will go to state-owned Geothermal Development Co. to buy three drilling rigs, according to Gabriel Negatu, regional director at the Abidjan, Ivory Coast-based financial institution. Kenya “has enormous potential in geothermal power capacity which it has not fully exploited,” Negatu said in an interview in Nairobi. The country has been tapping geothermal power in…

Kenyan Regulator Says Rate Caps Complicates Monetary Policy

Posted on by The Editorial Team

NAIROBI, Capital Markets in Africa: Kenya’s decision to introduce caps on commercial-lending rates is complicating monetary policy, Central Bank of Kenya Governor Patrick Njoroge said. “With the rate caps, it’s not clear which way to go,” Njoroge told reporters in the capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday, a day after the central bank cut its benchmark rate by 50 basis points to 10 percent. The limits on borrowing rates may result in a “perverse reaction” among banks and lead to riskier…

As Commodity Slump Batters Africa, Investors Turn to Technology

Posted on by The Editorial Team

LAGOS, Capital Markets in Africa: The titans of Silicon Valley are undeterred by the economic slump afflicting much of Africa. Facebook Inc., Google, Oracle Corp. and Uber Technologies Inc. are at the leading edge of turning the world’s frontier markets digital. As the commodity crash buffets the continent’s biggest economies, the interest and investments couldn’t come at a better time. Almost half of foreign direct investment projects in Africa last year were in technology, telecommunications, financial services…

Kenyan Bond Yields at 14-Month Lows as Rate Cap Hurts Stocks

Posted on by The Editorial Team

NAIROBI, Capital Markets in Africa: Yields on Kenyan government bonds dropped to the lowest in 14 months after a new law capping interest rates charged by commercial banks sparked a stock market slump, sending investors scurrying for the safety of fixed-income securities. Kenyan shilling debt has returned 6.7 percent this quarter, compared with the 3.9 percent average return of high-yield local-currency sovereign debt monitored by Bloomberg. The benchmark stock index plunged 9.2 percent in the…

Kenya’s Odinga Backs Call for Single Opposition Vote Candidate

Posted on by The Editorial Team

NAIROBI, Capital Markets in Africa: Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga backed a call by former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka for a single candidate to compete in next year’s presidential elections. The nominee should be fielded under banner of the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy, Odinga said in a statement e-mailed Tuesday from the capital, Nairobi. Musyoka has proposed that CORD be registered as a political party and that its three constituents each nominate a candidate, from whom one will…

« 1 … 27 28 29 30 31 … 51 »