Financial Consultant
Nairobi Kenya
Joined September 2015
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Understanding Secondary market Bond Trading ebook!
You can grab your copy here: 👇selar.com/secondarybondtradi…
Every purchase comes with a free ebook on Understanding how to Purchase Treasury Bond on the Primary Market as well.
Namsia Rhina retweeted
Key Takeaways From the World Bank’s Kenya Economic Update (Edition No. 34):
— Anti-corruption reforms could increase Kenya’s GDP by 8.7%–22.3% by 2035 relative to a no-reform scenario, improve job opportunities for up to 7.7M people and boost household consumption by up to 27%.
— Anti-corruption reforms could reduce Kenya’s debt-to-GDP ratio by up to 18% relative to the baseline. Improved governance could also lower external borrowing costs by 50–100 basis points, saving USD 50M–100M annually.
— Governance weaknesses are estimated to widen Kenya’s annual fiscal deficit by ~2 percentage points of GDP through revenue leakages, inefficient spending and procurement irregularities.
— Some 39% of Kenyan firms identified corruption as a major business constraint in 2025, up from 25% in 2013, while 36% reported experiencing at least one bribery request in the preceding year.
— ~48% of medium-sized firms reported being expected to provide gifts to public officials, compared with 36% of small firms and 31% of large firms. Firms exposed to bribery were over 30% less likely to innovate.
— Informal workers, accounting for 83.8% of employment, can lose up to 20% of their daily earnings to bribes demanded by police and municipal officials.
— Electricity for Kenyan businesses costs over 2X as much as in Vietnam and ~50% more than in Uganda. Mombasa Port ranks 375th out of 403 ports globally in the Container Port Performance Index.
— Kenya’s GDP growth is projected at 4.6% in 2026, 4.4% in 2027 and 4.8% in 2028, compared with 4.6% in 2025 and 5.2% in H1 2026.
— The current account deficit is projected to widen to 4.3% of GDP in 2026 from 2.8% in 2025, reflecting higher import costs and weaker remittances.
— Kenya’s FY2025/26 fiscal deficit widened to 6.8% of GDP from 6.0% in FY2024/25, exceeding the original 4.7% target. Expenditure reached 24.1% of GDP against a budgeted 22.2%.
— Public debt stood at 69.9% of GDP in June 2026, with domestic debt accounting for 56.2% of the total. Interest payments consumed 33.6% of government revenue, equivalent to 5.8% of GDP.
— Inflation increased to 7.3% in October 2026 from 4.6% a year earlier, driven by food (+10.2%) and energy (+10.4%) prices. The CBK maintained its policy rate at 8.75%.
— Private sector credit growth accelerated to 10.6% in September 2026 from 5.0% a year earlier, although lending to manufacturing contracted by 1.8%.
— Poverty is projected to decline marginally to 41.4% by 2028 from 43.0% in 2026, while ~84% of employment remains informal, limiting productivity and income growth.
Source: World Bank Kenya Economic Update No. 34 (documents.worldbank.org/en/p…)
Inflation just hit 7.3%. We were here last in July 2023 after it moved down from 7.9% in June same year, which happened after CBK took a drastic action in June that year to raise the benchmark lending rate from 9.5% to 10.5%.
The big question is, is CBK's action to raise it's next benchmark a solution?
Remember raising this rate also means borrowing becomes more expensive hence slowing down credit growth which is already slow anyway, and therefore reducing demand altogether.
lower income household may have to reduce the quantity or quality of food. To them it's more of squeezing what to save and their lifestyle.
For the HNWI it's more of restructuring their portfolios to determine how capital generates efficient real returns.
They have limited room to reduce expenditure without affecting their quality of life.
So a 10.2% increase in food prices is particularly significant to someone whose household budget is already stretched.
A higher-income household may switch restaurants or reduce holidays but a
It's literally a "kitchen inflation". These households generally spend a larger proportion of their income on necessities. Consider someone earning KES 20,000 monthly. Most of that income may go towards food, rent, transport, electricity and cooking oil.
Now, if you look at this basket, you'll realize that different categories of people will be affected differently and the lower income households will be affected more because for them, they already have nothing to cut down and most of the items up are basic needs for them.
Food has come up by 10.2% and it's foods such as beef, cabbage, beans, irish potatoes, oranges and cooking oil.
Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels is up by 3.7%
The inflation in 2023 was similarly characterized by this year's inflation whereby it comprised of increase in basic commodities such as food, transport, housing, electricity, gas and even water.
For this Oct, transport rose by 17.18% after EPRA announced increase in pump price.
Namsia Rhina retweeted
Don't forget to join us tonight on #MwangoSpaces as we dive into Veri Group's approach to connecting Africa's capital markets, the challenges of market fragmentation and opportunities for cross-border investment.
We'll be joined by Derry Thornalley, Chairman, and Pierre-Yves Roten, Head of Global Sales, Veri Group, to discuss how the company is working to improve market connectivity across the continent.
Set a reminder and join the conversation: teapawt.net/i/spaces/1yKAPwVBlqyxb
EQUITY FUNDS
One of the gaps in how Kenyans approach investing is that when we talk about equities, the conversation almost always revolves around buying shares directly at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).
• Arvocap Global Sharia Equity Special Fund
• XENO Kenya International Equity Special Fund
These products should not automatically be treated as interchangeable with conventional retail equity funds. Their mandates, underlying investments, currencies, minimum investments,
international markets through locally available investment structures.
Products worth researching include:
• Arvocap Thamani Equity Fund
• GenCap Hisa Fund
• NCBA Global Special Equity Fund
• Arvocap Africa Equity Special Fund
• Arvocap Global Equity Special Fund
2. Specialist, Regional and Global Equity products
This is where the conversation becomes even more interesting.
Equity investing does not have to end with the NSE. Depending on the product's mandate, investors may be able to access opportunities across other African markets or
Other names to investigate through the Capital Markets Authority's register and the respective fund managers include Co-op Equity Fund, KCB Equity Fund, GenAfrica Equity Fund, Jubilee Equity Fund, Enwealth Equity Fund, Octagon Equity Fund and Lofty Corban Equity Fund.
• CIC Equity Fund — CIC Asset Management
• ICEA LION Equity Fund — ICEA LION Asset Management
• Old Mutual Equity Fund — Old Mutual
• Amana Equity Fund — Amana Capital
• Nabo Africa Equity Fund — Nabo Capital
• Apollo Equity Fund — Apollo Asset Management
1. Conventional Equity Funds
These are the products to investigate if you want professionally managed exposure to equities, particularly through established Kenyan asset managers.
• NCBA Equity Fund — NCBA
• Britam Equity Fund — Britam Asset Managers
But they offer investors another route to participate in business growth through the capital markets.
WHICH EQUITY FUNDS CAN YOU EXPLORE IN KENYA?
We have several fund managers offering equity-oriented investment products. Here are names worth researching as a starting point.