The increased activity was mainly driven by foreign investor block trades on Equity Bank, SIB analysts said.
Heavy trading of Equity Bank share pushed turnover up six fold at the NSE Thursday, with the lender’s counter accounting for 89 per cent of the Sh3.68 billion total.
Equity moved 81.89 million shares Thursday to make a turnover of Sh3.27 billion, though the counter closed at an unchanged price of Sh46.50.
The counter last saw such block trades on June 30 when UK private equity firm Helios sold off a 4.21 per cent stake in the bank to fellow UK-based fund, Genesis Investment Management LLP, for Sh7.3 billion or Sh47 for each of 155.8 million shares.
“The increased activity was mainly driven by foreign investor block trades on Equity Bank,” said Standard Investment Bank in a market report.
Besides Equity, the other significant movers in the market were KCB, Kenya Re and EABL, which saw shares worth Sh183.9 million, Sh72.5 million and Sh41.2 million change hands respectively.
The main NSE 20 share index trended downwards for the third straight session, closing 34.8 points down at 4,429, while the NSE All Share index was also down, 0.59 points to close at 150.42.
Most counters either shed value or closed unchanged Thursday, with the biggest declines recorded in the manufacturing segment.
Flame Tree group lost 7.3 per cent to close the day at Sh7 per share, while BAT was 5.9 per cent down to Sh780.
PAYE Tax Calculator
Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
