The Kenya Reinsurance Corporation (Kenya-Re) has reported a profit after tax of Sh3.62bn for the year ended December 31, 2022, representing a 15% growth compared to 2021 full year results of Sh3.16bn.The corporation’s gross written premiums grew by 23% to Sh24.98bn while net earned premiums of Sh22.15bn grew by 16% compared to last year’s Sh19.04bn. The growth has largely been attributed to the reinsurer’s continued improvement in the reinsurance portfolio, enhancing customer-centricity, intensified market engagements to improve visibility and diversification of the portfolios and markets. Other factors include speedy processing of fully supported claims, inculcating a positive culture to support…
Author: NBM CORRESPONDENT
The Kenya shilling has been under constant pressure. It has depreciated by 10.2% from the beginning of the financial year to March 24, 2023. This volatility in exchange rate should not only worry business owners, but also consumers. While small depreciation can be handled by passing on the impact to consumers through raising prices, when the rate is steep, it becomes unsustainable. It is not sustainable for a business to keep on raising prices. It reaches a point where such a move will just impact demand negatively. If a business venture cannot absorb the impact of the (current) depreciation, and…
An anti-corruption court has put former Nyandarua County Governor Daniel Waithaka Mwangi and five former top county officials on their defence after finding that the State has established a prima facie case against them in a Sh50 million case they are facing. “After looking at the charges, evidence, submissions and exhibits on record, I find that the State has established a prima facie case against the accused. The accused therefore have a case to answer,” Senior Principle Magistrate Judith Wanjala ruled yesterday, sitting in Nyahururu. Mr Waithaka Mwangi, five top officials of his administration and two contractors of Israeli origin…
A recent strategic plan for the sugar sector revealed that Kenya is a comparatively high-cost producer because of inefficiencies across the entire value chain. In 2018, local sugar mills produced 490,704 tonnes, accounting for a paltry 57% of the domestic requirements of table sugar. In 2019, only 440,935 tonnes were produced against the consumption of 1,038,717 tonnes, resulting in a 58% deficit. Current demand stands at 850,000 tonnes, a drop from 639,741 tonnes in 2016, representing a 23% decline. The country cannot produce 160,000 tonnes of refined sugar, an annual requirement; thus, the deficit of both table and refined sugar…
BY PERMINUS WAINAINA I was in a networking event last month where I met an old classmate of mine, Situma (not his real name) who also runs a business. As we were sharing our experiences, he gave me a story of a conflict he was going through. Work habits of some of his employees of seven years are becoming horrible. Over the years, they have had an area that they are good at and to add on to that, they have the company knowledge and history. However, there have been times when their presence has done him more harm than good. …
BY TERESIA KING’ARA This book will stay with you long after you are done reading it. It is a roller coaster of emotions based on cultural undertones that still manifest in one way or another to date. Set in Nigeria, West Africa, it brings to life salient yet unspoken and unquestioned cultural beliefs that continue to set the tone for marriages. It highlights the frustrations both men and women undergo in marriage as they chase an illusionary perfect marriage. Based on two characters, Yejide and Akin, who have been married since they met and fell in love at university, the…
Vandalism of critical national infrastructure owing to the scrap metal trade has been growing gradually but steadily over the years By David Wanjala Mid-last year, at the height of the campaigns for the General Election that took place in August, President Uhuru Kenyatta, now retired, was bullied into rescinding a decision he had made in January of the same year banning trade in scrap metal. Coming in the wake of increased vandalism, mainly on power lines across the country, the President had issued a moratorium on the export or the buying or selling of any scrap material until there were…
By Alex Owiti The recent tech layoffs have taken the world by a surprise. Over 150,000 employees have been terminated from their jobs in an unanticipated manner within the tech industry, in spite of their global size and astronomical revenues. Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Amazon, Salesforce, NetApp, Twitter, Spotify, and Microsoft are some of the big tech firms that have recently streamlined their human resource capacity because of jittery about the looming global recession. What could be the issue? Are the layoffs warranted? Even though the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine-Russia War, Climate change, inflation, and other macroeconomic elements…
BY MUMBI MUTUKO An engineer is proving that it’s possible to turn fish waste to fertilizer. Michael Ibuba an Aeronautical engineer by profession launched an aquaponics farm which he turned into a full-blown business. In 2015,Mr. Ibuba started an Aquaponics farm, a method of growing plants and fish in a symbiotic environment, where the waste produced by fish is used as a fertilizer for the plants and the plants, in turn, clean the water for the fish. In Aquaponics, he says, ammonia, a by-product of fish, is not taken at face value – the growth beds where vegetables are grown…
Why would an investment company spend colossal amount of cash on buying its own shares? Here are five reasons Nairobi Securities Exchange listed firm, Centum Investment opened its share buyback offer on February 6, 2023 after an approval from its shareholders and the Capital Markets Authority in an effort to stabilize the company’s share price which has fallen from Sh80 in September 2014 to Sh9 as of February 9. The company has set aside Sh600.8 million to go towards buying 66.5 million shares from its shareholders within a period of 18 months, with a maximum share price set at Sh9.03…
