NSSF sells stake in Housing Finance, exits top ten list

National Social Security Fund (NSSF) has liquidated its stake in financial and property services provider, Housing Finance (HF) Group. Latest shareholding information for Housing Finance shows that NSSF is no longer listed among the top 10 shareholders.

Unlike in 2015 when NSSF board of trustees had 7.86 million shares, making it the seventh highest shareholder, the 2016 Annual Report released by Housing Finance shows the stake was liquidated.

This means that NSSF, which previously held 2.25 per cent stake may have sold all or substantial number of shares in HF condemning it out of top ten shareholders list. Also, it now leaves the number of HF shareholders with more than 1 million shares at 23 from 2015 when they were 24.

By end of December 2015, HF shares on Nairobi Securities Exchange were trading at an average of Sh20. This puts the value of NSSF stake at the time of liquidation in the region of Sh157 million. The share is now valued at Sh10.60. If NSSF still had its entire stake now, paper wealth would have been Sh83.3 million, down by 46.9 per cent.

NSSF has invested more than Sh52.7 billion in both quoted and unquoted stocks making it the highest investment area (40 per cent). Investment in government securities comes second at 24 per cent. In absence of NSSF, Standard Chartered Bank nominees and Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) nominees increased their stakes. KCB added another nominee account of 3.93 million shares while StanChart nominees got 14.2 million shares.

With the changes, Britam Investment Company retains the top spot with 67.88 million shares. However, its percentage shareholding is now at 19.43 per cent. In 2015 it was at 19.46 per cent.

Equity nominees retained their 45.76 million shares to be second at 11.1 per cent of total stake followed by British American Insurance Company with two accounts of 16 per cent combined shareholding. The Government, through Treasury retained its 2.41 per cent or 8.42 million shares in Housing Finance whose first quarter results dipped by 73 per cent.

The number of shareholders in HF stands at 27,099 representing an increase of 254 shareholders. The number of shares held has also gone up by 485,000.

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