Kenyan banking magnate James Mwangi loses more than $6 million in June

James Mwangi, a Kenyan multimillionaire banking magnate, recorded a Ksh715.7-million ($6.07-million) loss on his Equity Group stake in June amid a market-wide sell-off on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, as shares in the Kenyan banking group finished the first half of 2022 with a significant decline.

Mwangi’s multimillion-dollar loss in his Equity Group stake comes on the heels of a reduced appetite for emerging market shares after central banks in developed markets raised interest rates in an effort to curb the surge in inflation caused by increases in energy and food prices.

Equity Group Holdings Limited, the largest financial services group in East Africa, is the second most valuable company on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), with a market capitalization of Ksh151 billion ($1.28 billion), accounting for about 7.88 percent of the NSE’s total share capitalization.

Mwangi, who was instrumental in the growth and transformation of Equity Group, Kenya’s leading financial services provider, owns a sizable 3.38-percent stake in the company, totaling 127,809,180 shares.

Equity Group shares on the local bourse have fallen from a price of Ksh45.5 ($0.386) at the start of June to Ksh39.9 ($0.339) at the time of writing this report, resulting in a 12.3-percent loss for shareholders in just 30 days.

As a result of the double-digit decline in the group’s shares since the start of June, the market value of Mwangi’s stake has decreased by Ksh715.73 million ($6.07 million), from Ksh5.81 billion ($49.36 million) on June 1 to Ksh5.1 billion ($43.28 million) on June 30.

Equity Group shares have fallen by 24.36 percent since 2022 began, as investors continue to sell their holdings in the group despite it reporting a 36–percent increase in profit from Ksh8.7 billion ($74.9 million) in the first quarter of 2021 to Ksh11.9 billion ($102.4 million) in the same period of 2022.

This follows the lender’s record-high profit of Ksh40.1 billion ($350.2 billion) in 2021, which boosted its financial position and resulted in the payment of a dividend to shareholders amounting to Ksh11.3 billion ($97.25 million).