I always used to shout in the Kenol Kobil thread that it was USELESS for Segman to go against an African government and think you would win....

I think Segman realized that getting 5.3 billion from G.O.K would only possibly happen when Jesus came back...

As a new shareholder i do have beef with him for dragging on a lost battle for this long as i'm very sure it has injured the bottom line to some extent...

That said i still consider KK cheap and I was happy to still find it below 10bob after the dispute is over....

@g267, I would have thought you would have been happy with the fight. After all you would never have managed to get into the counter at the price of 10 or below without the skirmishes that JS was involved in.

JS was right to put up a fight. Even if it appears he lost, in my view he put up a good fight. This is the same way he has been ensuring that KK shareholders get a return superior to other listed energy companies and esp. Total.

Dont bash VVS. I admire his conviction and knowledge.

Had mentioned this too. KK may have had a good case. But big business is not run that way in the real world.

Ever heard 150-200 year old businesses like Goldman Sachs or Citigroup simultaneously, directly and publicly fighting the SEC, the IRS, the OCC, the OTS, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve and Secretary of the Treasury? Not that they never have reason to. Even when they issue a press release over a dispute with a state agency, they will never directly accuse a government agency of doing something wrong or how rotten the system is because of poor regulation.

If you have worked with multinationals, you know that concerns from regulators of their home country causes management to drop everything else and focus on getting back in their good books.

As a realistic business person, you need good working relations with the government (or at worst government disinterest) more than the government needs you. Especially if you are a business going regional/global, you will always need your home country government to protect you in foreign lands at some point. If Total was the one in dispute with KPRL, you can be sure that the French government and the EU would be armtwisting the government behind the scenes. For instance, KCB's and EB's expansion into Uganda or South Sudan required input from the CBK. If you have major beef with your home government regulators, you can get into a lot more difficulty with regulators in foreign lands.

A better approach to such concerns is always industry lobbying as it provides safety in numbers. Direct confrontation works best when an industry's most significant players move and speak as a block.

The main benefit from the crisis was the ability to get a relatively good stock at a bargain.

Well if you believe what NMG says then JS lost but the reality of the matter is that JS won by a big mile. If you look at the statement they put out to the NSE , no one is paying anything to anyone, and I will believe the company's statement more than I believe NMG which is full of journos for hire.

Any insider in the market will tell you that, when KK was locked out of the refinery, that's when government discovered you can't bully a company that promptly pays their tax. The person who ended up with egg on the face was the Min of Energy.

This is what happened. KK having been locked out of the KPRL, and being the ones with the highest number of stations in the country meant they were either going to close shop or shaft the market at the earliest. They chose the latter, they simply bought product at 2-5bob more from the market (and everyone was hppy to sell to them) which they latter resold with their usual margins intact. The effect was the price hikes that had everyone whining 2 weeks ago...ask yourself why Nyoike sounded helpless when he said he tried to appeal to marketers to be reasonable at the pump, the marketers just walked out on him- read JS. To avoid a repeat of KK doing the same, the Min of Energy officials were summoned to higher offices and ordered to amicably resolve this matter to KK's satisfaction. Didn't you read a very nice statement from Min of energy about how they had resolved the KK case....

LOL... Jameni... Mmesoma only one side of the story... as reported by the Business Daily Africa (Nation) who are notorious for poor business research...

Anyway, 2.5 months to 31 Dec 2010... & 5 months to release of Results... We shall see who has egg on their faces!

Remember KK does not rely 100% on Kenya. The other subsidiaries are doing very well according to the 1H 2010 Report.

Kenol fuel station have always been the most expensive ever since. I'd always wondered what their strategy was. I think they need to rebrand all their stations as they are the least attractive of all. Maybe it's time they did away with that dark green especially of the attendant's uniforms as it makes them look like jua kali mechanics.

I think you need to pass that message to KPMG. I believe they are about the same age (between 100 to 150 years) and they seem to spoiling for a fight with one Kosgey and his friend Kosgey.

http://www.businessdaily.../-/98uudcz/-/index.html

KenolKobil gets licence back