Nairobi trade fair

Yesterday monday i was invited to go and judge the exhibitions at the Nairobi trade fair. we were a number of judges and the theme was ; "Empowering people through growth in agribusiness" quite a mouthful. Well as expected most stands were not ready and when going in you could still hear the hammers and smell the paint. the theme was a little off if you ask me and for their part the american govt stand had seeds! the juakali stand was full of clothes (does jua kali only mean clothes?) however there was also a 'mural' of 'banana' leaders against a background of bananas. great talent wasted in worshiping politicians. However the juakali stand also had a very inovative
well-drill. the man said he can drill upto 500 feet and 6 inches wide. the machine cost only 750,000. the other commercial drillers charge upwards of 1million just to drill.

the other stands were prety much the same story, same exhibitors, same color. in fact most of the paitings were being hang from the nail holes of yesteryear.
I saw in the catlle stand a dairy cow going for 65,000. the attendant said the said cow was heavy with child and once it gave birth, it would give upwards of 40 litres of milk a day. if you sell that at 20 bob a litre, then you could beat the stock market any time!

the prisons band played a rendition of Tony Nyadundo's hit song 'Sanda gi Hera'. they made some very lovely formations. is this band commercial, or is it only wasted on politicians? going by their creativity, am sure they can make some tidy sums of money if they went commercial. played jazz etc.

if you look at it though, the show was generally low quality, i kept on wondering what the target audience was. for a fair which has existed for 86 years, i was expecting some spectacular stands, exhibitions and shows. i think sarit centre has stollen all the thunder from this ground and since at sarit the quality is very high, i suppose most firms are opting for maximum returns by going for the sarit shows or the ones at KICC. in fact some judges suggested that the ASK should be sold at the nairobi stock exchange now that there IPO is the bizzword.



in a number of blogs, pple are debating whether to buy MSC now, or wait for the govt to sell at a discount. some advisors are telling pple to sell what you have now, then wait to buy from the govt when they sell the extra 18% at a discount. another told people that Mumias cannot fulfill their EU quota for sugar hence is a bad buy. yet another is telling people to sell because the price is droping etc.

what i know is given the restructuring, the venture into alcohol, th generation of electricity (34 MW) and the selling of their kyoto quota to japan, the low price, Mumias is the company of the moment.


Odegle tip of the day -- I have learnt that before deciding on the firm to buy, find out whether you truly understand their business, their management style, their goals, their ownership , their industry, thier future, their competition. if all that is acceptable to you. then its safe to invest.