Billionaire Kibunga Kimani adds Sh49m Centum shares
Billionaire investor John Kibunga Kimani has acquired additional shares worth Sh48.8 million in Centum Investment Company Plc, raising his stake above five percent.
Centum’s latest annual report shows Mr Kimani’s stake hit 34.69 million shares or 5.21 percent in the year ended March 2023, up from 4.39 percent at the end of March last year.
Read: Billionaire Kimani raises Kakuzi stake to 34.54pc
The new 5.46 million shares have taken his stake in the firm to Sh310.2 million, going by Centum’s share price of Sh8.94 at the close of trading on Tuesday.
Mr Kimani’s new shares have deepened his position as Centum’s third-largest shareholder after the estate of the late entrepreneur Chris Kirubi and State-owned Kenya Development Corporation, which kept their stakes at 30.94 percent and 22.97 percent respectively.
The review period also saw the shares of Centum chief executive James Mworia rise by 27,400 to 5.7 million, giving him a 0.86 percent stake.
Mr Kimani bought the additional shares in a period when the Centum stock continued its decline to close March at Sh9.10 compared with Sh12.10 in a similar period in 2022. The share had closed March 2019 at Sh32.
He also holds a 33.27 percent stake in the agricultural firm, Kakuzi, with his 6.52 million shares valued at Sh2.51 billion.
Centum says its true value is substantially higher than its market capitalisation, quoting its net asset value per share at Sh54.4 as of March. This means it is trading below the company’s book value.
The firm rolled out a share buyback programme on February 6, 2023, at the offer price of Sh9.03 per share, managing to buy back 4.8 million shares by July.
It got approval to buy up to 66.5 million shares over the 18-month buyback period and says this is one of the ways of clearing market overhang and allowing the price to trend closer to its intrinsic value.
“The buyback programme is one of the proactive steps that management has to help close the Price to NAV gap,” says Centum in the annual report.
The share price touched a high of Sh9.50 in July, being 6.7 percent above the Sh8.90 at the start of the buyback.
Centum says in instances when the share is trading above the Sh9.03 offer price, it does not participate in the market.
The firm’s consolidated loss after tax for the year ended March was Sh7.3 billion compared to Sh2.1 billion a year earlier.
Read: Billionaire Kimani buys Sh219m shares in Centum
The performance was largely weighed down by the loss from the Two Rivers Development operations on account of a Sh3.9 billion impairment provision in addition to high finance costs. BY BUSINESS DAILY
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