I hate to rain on this parade but I must. My opinion is that the locals are cooking results. The following are especially noteworthy;
1) Frequent change of CFOs...Equity, NIC come to mind
2) The multinationals bucking the trend and seeing their profitability reduce

I know that my comments are unwelcome and will be condemned, but industry insiders will eventually come out and confirm the obvious.The profitablity battle between KCB, Equity and NIC will not well. Expect more CFO casualties.

@accelriskconsult, If by multinationals you mean BBK and StanChart, it would help to know that they have a peculiar "prohibitive" environment, thanks to the London connection.I bank with both and they are too rigid with a tinge of pride.
A decision that takes a month at Equity, Family or even Coop, takes double or more with the British banks.
How many branches do the British banks have in Eastlands[Ngara, Gikomba, Buru, Umoja,Kayole]?
Informal sectors shuns the British banks because of the bureaucracy and that's costing them.

About books being cooked,that's not entirely the reason for multinationals declining fortunes nor the fodder feeding the locals growth.

It's a tall order for Coop to overtake KCB in the next three years, but the gap between the third and fourth bank will surely balloon.

Word!

Watching

I believe the issued shares of this stock are the fourth highest. We dont need more liquidity here

@ericsson are you suggesting that buying or selling barclays shares is difficult? wewe unachukulia watu aje hapa?

You could be right but you are uite wrong. Rights issue cannot be introduced in a liquid market as it creates unfavourable conditions (flooding) The best game is to withhold much of the dividend though it seem to hurt the investor but at the end there is a quick capital gain. You never introduce rights issue at the final quarter of an year as this will distabilise the focus. Rights issue are introduce in an illiquid market to create more shares to trade at the same time to use the money to fund expansion or increase equity. Not ll right issues are taken as people may not have money to cash on the abit lower price offer but new investors are allowed to take the untaken shares. The actul book value of Coop Bank stock is 24 to 30 kes and introducing rights may push it back to 15 Kes.

@Obiero;when I said a handful of shares I meant Barclays has 5.5Billion worth of issued shares and that is the second highest in the nse.try putting a buy order of 10million shares we see if u will be able to get.That is what I meant.
For KQ it was a flop because the financial performance of the airline has been going down i.e profits tumbling.
KCB and HFCK are good examples because investors have been able to see their return on investments.
So the problem should not be the liquidity but the return on investment.
And when they do the rights issue shares to be issued will be around 600m.

@Realtreaty;yes they can withold as much dividend but that will not be sustainable or feasible coz they would like to embark on their regional expansion asap like having a branch in all the states in South Sudan as they had indicated when they were launching the subsudiary there,going to uganda,tanzania and rwanda.
The bank was to do a rights issue in 2011/2012 but twas put on hold because of the poor performance of the NSE which hindered the right price discovery.
Rights issue are normally done when the NSE is on a bull run that's why CFC Stanbic,DTB,NIC and Stanchart did their rights issues last year.

Coop has traded at 17-17.30 range for so long . What's the likely move down or up . So much resistance

coop should smash KES 20 on results announcement