Listed firms are facing higher finance costs as a result of the weakening of the shilling against the dollar, exposing the risk carried by foreign currency loans to local firms.
Companies such as Kenya Power, KenGen, Centum, Safaricom and most large banks carry significant exposure to currency rate risk, owing to significant dollar borrowings from external lenders and development finance institutions (DFIs) to finance capital expenditure, and in the case of banks for on-lending to customers.
