Safaricom’s share at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) yon Thursday shrunk by more than two per cent as mourners commemorated the death of the firm’s captain, the late Bob Collymore.
The share opened at Sh28.15 at 9am but dropped to a week’s low of Sh27.55 an hour later, before fluctuating to close the day at Sh27.50 as captured by the Nutcracker, a real time stock tracker.
A total of 3.6 million shares were traded compared to 6.19 million that resulted into a turnover of 174.28 million the previous day.
Market analyst David Mochama said decline was not out of the ordinary, considering the country was mourning a top leader at the company.
"The decline though minimal was expected. I cannot read too much in it. I guess investors and indeed Kenyans are mourning the great captain of industry, Bob Collymore,’’ Mochama said.
A drop in Safaricom’s share affected the overall performance at the Nairobi bourse, with the Nairobi All Share Index (NASI) losing 20 basis points to close the day at 149.81 points.
The richest segment that tracks 20 best counters on NSE also lost 6.53 points to close the day at 2644.92 compared to performance on Wednesday.
Safaricom is the top counter at NSE, commanding almost 50 per cent of the total market capitalization of 2.2 trillion.
The late CEO is accredited for doubling the telco’s subscribers from 16 million to 32 million in past nine years and pushing the share from Sh4 to Sh28 when he died on Monday.
On Tuesday, Safaricom board appointed Michael Joseph as an interim CEO.
