Category: East Africa

IDB Capital has unveiled a Sh1.5 billion line of credit to small and medium enterprises seeking to fund machinery imports under an India-funded scheme. Managing director Karen Kandie told the Business Daily that SMEs with healthy balance sheets seeking to meet market demand or upgrade their machinery to reduce operational costs would be considered. Ms…

Nairobi-based transport firm City Star Shuttle has sued Sidian Bank to stop the auction of four mass transit buses it bought last year following a dispute over repayment of a Sh100 million loan the lender advanced to finance the purchase. City Star Shuttle claims that Sidian Bank has threatened to auction the four mass transit…

The vicious boardroom wars that have threatened to stall operations of charter airline Bluebird Aviation have now entangled two rival firms in a fresh dispute over three planes valued at $40 million (Sh4.1 billion). Bluebird co-founder Yusuf Abdi Adan has filed two fresh suits seeking to block the transfer of an airplane (model Dash 8-106…

Tanzania’s government signed a $154 million contract on Saturday with the state-run China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) to expand the main port in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam. Tanzania is seeking financing for infrastructure projects as part of its plans to transform the country into a regional transport and trade hub. Under the contract…

Coffee earnings in April improved 21 per cent compared with the same period last year even as the volume traded at the auction declined marginally. Statistics from Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) indicate that the value of Kenya’s coffee moved from Sh11.6 billion ($112.5 million) to Sh13.9 billion ($135.3 million) in the period under review on…

Eleven Kenyan banks are set to convert Sh23 billion in risky Kenya Airways loans into shares in a rare restructuring deal fronted by the Treasury that has seen the lenders also commit to advance the struggling airline working capital. The banks, which include big lenders Equity, KCB Group , Commercial Bank of Africa and Co-operative…

Kenya will ship out crude from Turkana oilfields three times in a year as vessels require more than 10 times the daily output. The country is this month expected to evacuate 2,000 barrels per day from Turkana via road to storage tanks in Mombasa. Petroleum principal secretary Andrew Kamau said the oil will be stored…

Mortgage financier HF Group recorded a 73 per cent net profit drop in the first quarter ended March in the wake of surging defaults. The lender’s net earnings in the period stood at Sh88.3 million compared to Sh327.4 million in the year before. HF’s interest income declined 19.5 per cent to Sh1.8 billion as it…

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has warned that the decline in lending to small enterprises since the introduction of the legal cap on loan rates threatens jobs and economic growth. Latest CBK data shows bank lending to micro, small and medium size enterprises (MSMEs) fell by 5.7 per cent between August and April, even…