Shares and fares

Like every Kenyan I was exited by the Safaricom IPO. I imagined I was going to own a hefty chunk of this mega company. So payslip, ID and deposit in hand I approached my bank to get 'free' money to invest.

Getting to bank I found I could borrow 3 times what I'm investing. Good. Okay lets invest. Then I decided to read the small print. We have interest due at the end of the month, refunds to be used to offset whatever balance I might not have paid, shares to be held until I pay, and only to be traded under the auspices of the bank. So. Who owns those shares? Hmmmm. It appears the bank owns those shares, my cdf account and can actually use my cdf account to recover any outstanding loans. Even sell shares I did not buy with that loan. So by getting the loan, not only have I given the bank any potential Safaricom shares, but also any other shares I already own and trade. Suddenly this doesn't look like a nice idea. I'm giving carté blanché to a bank to sell all my shares whenever they think they want their money back! I would be sold, lock, stock and barrel, to the bank.

Thankfully I chickened out before I could follow this up. So now when everybody is hanging out, mourning and bitching about their 21% allocation, I am one of those few Kenyans who do not own any part of this amazing company with peculiar trading habits. Now it is trading at 7.25. Good price, but given the interest rates and stuff, I think I wouldn't have broken even.

Interesting that I'm still one of those Kenyans who have still refused to change from the network though. Given that we were issued with 'free' calls that couldn't be made. Which were subsequently changed to 'free' calls at the witching hour (that still cannot be made) I still wonder what logic inspires me to ramin on Safaricom. I hear celtel has a clear network, cheaper rates, and a customer service that you can actually reach. Yet I still reatain my Suffericom line and use it almost exclusively. No wonder we are called peculiar...