As a proud investor in Centum, I looked forward to reading their lovely annual report mailed to me yesterday only to be horrified by the lack of detail. Disclosure requirements have slackened but let’s just see what exactly is missing versus the 2009 annual report (when they actually made a loss).

1. Not even naming the Top 10 shareholders, com’on seriously… (no hint of a shareholding structure, guess you’ll have to wait for another year).

2. CSR done (if any) or for the future. Pretend you care.

3. Directors’ profiles missing (although they didn’t change directors much).

4. No breakdown of their quoted & unquoted investments. If you want to know how to model your portfolio versus theirs’, u can’t. It would have been so interesting to see how they're portfolio had changed as an investor. What did they do to KCB? What about Carbacid Investments (what was the cost vs the market value now)? No disclosure of income per sector (which sector drives investment income).

5. Set up a new subsidiary Reli Holdings in British Virgin Islands to engage in infrastructure investments. Why didn’t they use Rasimu Limited which engages in investment activities?

6. CEO decided to give his annual statement a miss (he needs to account for the performance, non?). So that means we don’t know the economic challenges and opportunities in market that might arise that may impact the portfolio in the future. How they intended to fund themselves in the future to reach 30 billion in assets by 2014. Their target portfolio structure (PE vs Real Estate). Plans for geographical spread of future investments given their 2 billion in liquidity. Comparison of Centum’s net asset value versus NSE index for the past 5 years (outperforming the market or not?). No details on why dividend income declined, why associate contribution declined and where the gain on disposal of investments came from.

7. No descriptions of the new re-organized divisions (because they made a big deal about it):- Private Equity (PE), Quoted Private Equity (QPE) and Real Estate Business lines. Their goals, strategy, targets? Given the new additions to management and restructuring whose running these business lines?

8. A 10 year breakdown of financials & constituent counters in their equity portfolio on the back pages.

9. The management's expectation of the coming year not even a statement or a paragraph with the heading saying "future outlook", "coming year", or "future prospects".

Any theories for the complete lock-down in information? As a minority shareholder, should I even care?

Check out the annual report http://www.centum.co.ke/...for%20FY%202009_2010.pdf

What are they hiding?

[quote=Scubidu]As a proud investor in Centum, I looked forward to reading their lovely annual report mailed to me yesterday only to be horrified by the lack of detail. Disclosure requirements have slackened but let’s just see what exactly is missing versus the 2009 annual report (when they actually made a loss).

1. Not even naming the Top 10 shareholders, com’on seriously… (no hint of a shareholding structure, guess you’ll have to wait for another year).

2. CSR done (if any) or for the future. Pretend you care.

3. Directors’ profiles missing (although they didn’t change directors much).

4. No breakdown of their quoted & unquoted investments. If you want to know how to model your portfolio versus theirs’, u can’t. It would have been so interesting to see how they're portfolio had changed as an investor. What did they do to KCB? What about Carbacid Investments (what was the cost vs the market value now)? No disclosure of income per sector (which sector drives investment income).

5. Set up a new subsidiary Reli Holdings in British Virgin Islands to engage in infrastructure investments. Why didn’t they use Rasimu Limited which engages in investment activities?

6. CEO decided to give his annual statement a miss (he needs to account for the performance, non?). So that means we don’t know the economic challenges and opportunities in market that might arise that may impact the portfolio in the future. How they intended to fund themselves in the future to reach 30 billion in assets by 2014. Their target portfolio structure (PE vs Real Estate). Plans for geographical spread of future investments given their 2 billion in liquidity. Comparison of Centum’s net asset value versus NSE index for the past 5 years (outperforming the market or not?). No details on why dividend income declined, why associate contribution declined and where the gain on disposal of investments came from.

7. No descriptions of the new re-organized divisions (because they made a big deal about it):- Private Equity (PE), Quoted Private Equity (QPE) and Real Estate Business lines. Their goals, strategy, targets? Given the new additions to management and restructuring whose running these business lines?

8. A 10 year breakdown of financials & constituent counters in their equity portfolio on the back pages.

9. The management's expectation of the coming year not even a statement or a paragraph with the heading saying "future outlook", "coming year", or "future prospects".

Any theories for the complete lock-down in information? As a minority shareholder, should I even care?

Check out the annual report http://www.centum.co.ke/...or%20FY%202009_2010.pdf[/quote]


That is why I admire the Annual Report of SAB Miller

Thanks bolingowarrior. I'm sure it'll be helpful to all wazua investors.

Elder, glad you like the handle! Doggone it...apparently the Centum folks have updated their website at http://www.centum.co.ke and the link I provided earlier now no longer works!

All very interesting, kwani how many versions are out there?

@sparkly. The power of wazua...they'll keep churning out different versions until we're satisfied :) Maybe wazua is the official complaints desk for minority shareholders.

The updated version is available on the homepage(www.centum.co.ke), it is also on the Investor Relation Section.

@bolingowarrior. I wouldn't be surprised if they do sneek a peak occasionally. There's so much one can learn from wazua on investor perception, confidence as well as other leaked info, hehehe.

CapitalMarketsGeek wrote:


Interesting analysis. The subsidiary issue reminds me of Sir Allen Standford or the wall street hedge fund guys...or Helios. They've committed fund to the Helios 2 Fund something? What's the Helios 2 Fund do? The balance sheet shows excellent valuation in the last year, everything was up (expected as the stock market rose). But looking at the income statement it paints a different portrait. Dividend income down. Admin expenses up massively. Finance costs up a lot. Associate profit down. The only good thing that happened was selling KCB, but they can't disclose changes in their portfolio. Do we judge their performance based on the balance sheet or the P&L?