NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 22 – The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) has posted a five percent decline in profit in first six months to hit Sh77 million down from Sh82 million same period last year.
Management attributes the decline to an increase in expenses due to a one off investment in M-AKIBA and consultancy fees as the firm prepares to bring new products in the market.
Expenses went up by eight percent to Sh254milion from Sh235million same period last year.
The Chief Executive Geoffrey Odundo says there was a slight dip in the equities market in the first quarter of 2017, but it started to pick up in the second quarter.
“We started the year with a knockoff effect, taking over the spillover of last year, the capping of interest rates, commodity price drops, but the market has been very resilient, to the run up of the election the market appreciated by 11 percent the index did well from a low of 2,700 to slightly above 4000 points,” he said during the results announcement.
Total income went up by 11pc in the period under review while equity turnover hit Sh164 billion up from Sh147 billion recorded same period last year.
He said more products that include derivatives and exchange traded funds, a green bond is in the pipeline being finalized to be released to the market soon.