Shareholders
Our shareholders provide us with the capital and oversight that supports our growth and continued success.

Our shareholding structure is composed of the Government of Kenya (35%); Vodafone (40%) and free float (25%).

While the overall shareholding structure hasn’t changed, we have noticed a decline in retail shareholders and an increase in corporate shareholders within the ‘free float’, especially local companies. The following chart presents the movements in proportions of our shareholder categories from March 2015 to March 2016.

As the preceding chart shows, foreign corporates hold the highest proportion of the free float, approximately 50%. While the number of local companies holding shares in Safaricom has been on a decline, the proportion of shares they hold has been increasing, currently these companies hold 33% of the free fl oat). We attribute this trend to profit taking among small-scale retail investors, with lager investors and foreign corporates picking up the shares.
The preceding table shows that 95% of our shareholders hold a maximum of 10,000 shares and are mostly comprised of the local individuals; however, the number of the local individual shareholders continue to decline.

How did we deliver value to them during the year?

We deliver value to our investors through our strong financial performance and through how we engage and communicate with them.

Financial performance: We delivered strong financial performance again this year, which has resulted in further dividend growth and share appreciation:

  • Achieving an EBITDA of KSh 83.1bn, up 16.7% from FY15, with an EBITDA margin of 44.6
  • Achieving a 19.6% increase in net income (increase to KSh 38.1bn)
  • Proposing a dividend per share of KSh 0.76, which is 18.9% higher than last year
  • Increasing our free cash fl ow by 10.3% to KSh 30.4bn

This strong financial performance is the result of Safaricom successfully implementing its strategy to grow revenue while controlling costs (please refer to the Annual Report for more details).

Communications to investors:

We engage with individual investors, fund managers, analysts and other members of the investment community actively. On a regular, ongoing basis, we deliver value to these important stakeholders by ensuring that we are available to them and respond to their telephonic, email and message-based enquiries swiftly. We also publish an annual report to keep investors updated on financial and non-financial performance, and we hold an annual general meeting, which provides a forum for discussion and debate with shareholders.

We also disseminate information about financial results, reports and upcoming events to them via press releases and other communiqués. In addition, we will invite shareholders and other members of the investment community to briefi ngs and workshops as required.

We maintain an up-to-date investor dashboard on the Safaricom website as well, which enables investors to access a wide range of information conveniently and easily, including our investor calendar of events and forms, our current corporate strategy, analyst coverage, fact sheets, share price information, half year and full year results, our reports, along with information regarding our current governance and sustainability objectives and performance.

Along with these standard, ongoing responses, some of the specific ways in which we have delivered value to our shareholders during the reporting period include:

Local and international investor road shows

During the year, we hosted investor road shows to share our interim and full year results. During these roadshows we update shareholders on our strategy and outlook.

Swift dividend payouts

During the year, we continued to pay investors their dividends through our M-PESA platform, which makes it a cheaper and more convenient process for recipients, particularly smaller investors.

Assistance with reclaiming lapsed dividends

We continue to address issues around unclaimed dividends as these arise, primarily, by advising the affected shareholders on the process of claiming their dividends from the Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority (UFAA). We also intend to encourage the UFAA to continue with initiatives of educating the shareholders on the implications of the Unclaimed Financial Assets Act. This is in addition to informing our shareholders of the same and encouraging them to encash any outstanding dividend cheques or opt to be paid by other faster means, such as M-PESA and EFTs.