Kenblest of Thika is expanding its milling capacity. http://www.businessdaily...0/-/ogudbm/-/index.html

Is this good news [the industry is expanding] or bad news [increased competition for Unga]?

Ugali is not where the money or expansion is. Wheat is where it is at. And just because the market expands, it does not mean it remains profitable for the current players.

34.75

July 21st, 2010

Poor baby. Still upset about KQ's losses?
Unga doesn't screw over lenders or suppliers or GoK...
Positive NAV. NAV/Share > Price/Share
Write-offs (provisions) to clean up (potential) bad debts. [good move by management esp for Nakumatt bad debt.] The lenders to KQ should have seen the signs (like many did on Wazua) and stopped lending to KQ.

Back to Unga. Good move to write-off (provide) the bad debts owed by Nakumatt in KE and UG. And a good decision to close a loss-making unit in UG instead of running loss-making routes like Hanoi [until Mikosz closed it].

What would piss me off and make me dispose of Unga shares if the trend of losses & provisions continues without a game plan year-in and year-out. Ohana of KK has also been writing off bad debts [KPRL] with a view to cleaning up the Balance Sheet of dead assets. KK can then be sold off to an interested party as a clean firm.

Hutchinson too needs to clean up Unga's Balance Sheet of impaired goodwill, bad debts, Uganda subsidiary, etc [dead assets] and concentrate on making real profits.

Since Centum is in UG, Unga should partner and re-develop their factory land into warehouses. Centum has done well in finding buyers for their properties and could help Unga exit UG with some cash that can be deployed into expanding wheat milling and storage in Kenya.

@chief vvs.. No lender has lost its debt on KQ, which remains in the top 5 highest revenue generating companies in East and Central Africa. Meanwhile Hanoi was a product of bad politics, where some priced items needed to be uplifted for onward ferrying, arising from bilateral sign offs signed up by your close friends in GoK