Hass Consult buys four million Home Afrika shares joining list of top owners
Home Afrika chief executive Njoroge Ng’ang’a at a past event. Real estate advisory firm Hass Consult has bought a one per cent stake in Home Afrika, joining the ranks of the property developer’s top owners. FILE PHOTO | SALATON NJAU |
What you need to know:
The move could be seen as a reflection of Hass’ confidence in Home Afrika’s future prospects given the consultancy’s vast intelligence on Kenya’s property market.
The investment, however, comes at a time when the property developer’s stock has more than halved from its listing price of Sh12 in July last year, with some of the founder shareholders cutting their stakes.
Home Afrika — which had 128 shareholders — has seen its investor base rise to 5,171 since listing.
Real estate advisory firm Hass Consult has bought a one per cent stake in Home Afrika, joining the ranks of the property developer’s top owners.
The latest regulatory filings show that Hass bought four million Home Afrika shares in August, making it the ninth largest institutional investor with a portfolio currently valued at Sh17.6 million.
The move could be seen as a reflection of Hass’ confidence in Home Afrika’s future prospects given the consultancy’s vast intelligence on Kenya’s property market.
Hass offers property valuation, development, management, sales and letting services besides conducting research that gets published in the Hass Property Index.
The advisory firm did not respond to our queries by the time of going to press.
The investment, however, comes at a time when the property developer’s stock has more than halved from its listing price of Sh12 in July last year, with some of the founder shareholders cutting their stakes.
The original investors traded at least 89.1 million shares in the 12 months to August following the company’s listing on the Growth Enterprise Market Segment (GEMS) segment of the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).
The stock shot to Sh25 on the first day of trading on July 15 last year but has since retreated 82.4 per cent to the current price of Sh4.4 per share.
CMA did not lock in Home Afrika’s founder shareholders upon listing as is the norm, a fact the attributed to a lack of concentration in its ownership.
“None of the existing shareholders beneficially owns a three per cent interest in the voting power of the issuer and have therefore not undertaken a lock-in period,” the firm said in its listing disclosures.
Investment vehicle Seyani Brothers & Co –which previously owned 10 million shares equivalent to a 2.47 per cent stake in Home Afrika — has dropped from the list of the company’s owners.
Mr Patrick Nganga, Lillian Nduta, and institutional investors YCEO Holdings and Global Equity Ventures also traded 10 million shares each, dropping off the top shareholders’ list.
Home Afrika Continental — the investment vehicle of nine individuals — sold 9.6 million shares in what reduced its stake to 2.96 per cent from 5.92 per cent.
The share sale saw the institutional investor replaced at the top of the property firm’s owners list by Home Afrika Investments which traded 8.3 million shares, cutting its stake to 3.55 per cent from 5.03 per cent.
Wakini Ltd, Red Anchor and Paul Munyua also exited after selling six million shares each.
Stimela Co-op cut its stake from 2.47 per cent to 1.87 per cent in the same period after selling 2.4 million shares.
Home Afrika — which had 128 shareholders — has seen its investor base rise to 5,171 since listing.
The company made a net profit of Sh42.9 million in the half year ended June, a 72.4 per cent drop compared to Sh155.4 million the year before.
The profit drop was driven by higher costs, with cost of goods sold nearly doubling to Sh326.3 million. Sales, however, rose at a slower rate of 13 per cent to Sh550.4 million leading to the reduced earnings.
Home Afrika’s management said it is optimistic of a better performance in the second half of the year, betting on overall economic growth and its pipeline of real estate projects including the flagship Migaa in Kiambu.
