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Smoking out profits from BAT shares 

For BAT-Kenya shareholders, however, smoke has meant one of the highest returns at the Nairobi Stock Exchange in the past one year, making a mockery of the bourse’s one-year bearish run.

The returns have been two-fold, in price appreciation and dividend pay-out. On January 21, for example, BAT shares were selling at Ksh137 ($1.75), but by June 24, the price had risen to Ksh170 ($2.2), an appreciation of Ksh43 (US 55 cents).

A shareholder who bought into the company on January 21 would, however, have made a bigger killing, given that BAT-Kenya paid a final dividend of Ksh12.50 (US 16 cents) on April 30.

Taken together, the price appreciation and dividend payout mean that the total gain per share for the investor would have been Ksh55.50 (US 71 cents) by last week, equivalent to a 41 per cent gain in investment in just four-and-a-half months. Globally, annual gains of around 10 per cent on capital are considered good.

The gains registered by the BAT stock far outstrip those made by the NSE over the last four weeks, when the bourse registered some recovery pressure.

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