Today, Cytonn Investments hosted over 500 clients to the mid-year economic and market update dinner at Radisson Blu Hotel. The dinner focused in giving investments and real estate projects updates, in line with Cytonn’s fiduciary duty, as well as an appreciation for all the trust, confidence and support that the clients have shown in the firm.
Speaking at the event, Edwin H. Dande, Cytonn’s Managing Partner & CEO, noted, “the first half of 2017 has been a fruitful one for Cytonn, with strong balance sheet growth of 21.2% year to date, while profitability has increased to Kshs 320.9 mn in the period ended June 2017 from Kshs 51.5 mn over the same period in 2016.” “We welcome everyone to this mid-year client engagement where we look to update you on Cytonn, the market, and also to get your feedback and interact with you,” he added.
Shiv Arora, Financial Controller, noted that every day at Cytonn involves picking a general direction and executing towards it, with people being Cytonn’s greatest asset among its four pillars; people, products, processes and distribution. “Cytonn always attracts talent through the Cytonn Young Leaders Program (CYLP), setting up a dedicated team to best serve our clients and deliver the best returns” said Shiv. “We are all about ordinary people working extraordinarily to deliver extraordinary results,’’ he added.
Addressing investment opportunities in Kenya, Antti-Jussi Ahveninen, Board Member at Cytonn, noted that real estate is the most stable and most performing investment, having posted higher returns compared to the traditional asset classes over the last 5 years.
“GDP growth in 2016 came in at 5.8%, supported by the strong performance in key sectors such as Real Estate and the continued recovery of tourism,” noted Elizabeth Nkukuu, Senior Partner & Chief Investments Officer. “Going forward, we expect 2017 GDP growth to come in between 4.7% and 5.2%, supported by (i) continued investment in infrastructure, (ii) the recovery of the tourism sector, and (iii) the continued growth of the construction sector,” she added.
“Cytonn Real Estate has 9 projects under its mandate, with more projects in our deal pipeline under review,” noted Martin Gitonga, Senior Project Manager at Cytonn. “We will be expanding into Sub-Saharan Africa as we focus on both regional and county growth,” he added.
Cytonn also notified clients that the firm is looking forward to listing, “we are already gone through the process of conversion from private to public company and the next move is that we shall be looking to list on a global exchange. The aim of this will be to get to cheaper funding alternatives hence enhancing our capacity to deliver the best possible return to both our clients and our shareholders,” noted Investments Manager, Maurice Oduor, at the event. “We are also looking to start conducting regulated and we have lodged an application with The Capital Markets Authority,” added Maurice.
L-R: Daisy Muthee, Client Service Assistant; Mwaruwa Chaka, Software Engineer; Dorcas Chemutai, Client Service Analyst and Fund Operations Analysts; Joshua Mwanjama, Ruthnice Njuguna and Lydia Mugo, being introduced to clients by Edwin H. Dande, Managing Partner & CEO.
