A Named Desk: Seven Firms Can Take Kenyan Orders for Dangote's Nigeria Sale

A Kenyan who wants a piece of Dangote's Nigerian refinery now has a named broker, and a week to use it.

The Capital Markets Authority said on 5 October that it has approved a short-form prospectus from Renaissance Capital Kenya for a global depositary receipt tied to the initial public offering of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals. The Nigerian offer opened on 14 September and closes on 13 October. It is 4.

10 billion ordinary shares at 525 naira each, a book of about 2.15 trillion naira. At about 11.50 naira to the shilling, that price is roughly KSh 45.65 a share and the book is roughly KSh 186.96 billion. That conversion is ours, not the CMA's. A buyer is not sending naira. The broker converts.

A depositary receipt is a certificate that stands in for a foreign share. The buyer in Nairobi does not take the Nigerian share into a local account. A bank holds the share and issues the receipt.

The CMA has also named seven licensed firms already helping clients through correspondent lines in Nigeria: CPF Capital and Advisory, SBG Securities with Stanbic Bank, Francis Drummond, National Bank of Kenya with Access Bank, Sterling Capital, Kestrel Capital, and AXYS Investment Bank.

This is not the Lamu share

The Authority was plain on the point that has been muddled in public. The sale is of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE in Nigeria. It is not an offer of shares in the Lamu refinery. The earlier review of a local instrument was about how a Kenyan might get access at all.

Monday's notice is the access route, and it is a receipt, not a Lamu certificate. The 10 per cent Kenya was offered in the Lamu project is a separate conversation, between governments, and it is not what these seven firms are selling.

Orders go through one of the seven, or through the Renaissance receipt, and they stop on 13 October. A listing of that receipt on the Nairobi Securities Exchange is not part of this approval. Anyone offered a Lamu share form this week is being sold something the regulator says is not on the table.