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Mbaru calls it a day at the NSE

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Veteran investment banker Jimnah Mbaru. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Veteran investment banker Jimnah Mbaru has retired as a director of the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) #ticker:NSE bringing to an end one of the most

defining tenures in Kenya’s financial services sector.

Mr Mbaru is bowing out after turning 70, the age in which a director of a listed company must legally retire unless he requests and is granted exemption by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA).

While on the NSE board, Mr Mbaru represented trading participants, including brokerage houses and investment banks.

NSE said in a statement that Mr Mbaru had retired by rotation “in accordance with Articles 94 and 95 of the Company’s Articles of Association, and, having attained the age of 70 in terms of Clause 2.5.1 of the Code of Corporate Governance Practices for Issuers of Securities to the Public, 2015,” and will not offer himself for re-election.

Mr Mbaru was first elected vice-chair of the NSE, then called Nairobi Stock Exchange, in 1991 and was reelected the following year.

“I am happy to have overseen several developments at the NSE, including change from open outcry system to automation of trading,” Mr Mbaru said in an interview.

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The exchange also underwent other changes, including demutualisation and reduction in transaction day, with Mr Mbaru as chairman or director. It was during Mr Mbaru’s term in 1991 that the NSE was registered as a private company limited by shares, having changed from share trading that was conducted over a cup of tea (at the Exchange Bar of the Sarova Stanley Hotel, then called New Stanley Hotel) to the trading floor in IPS Building, Kimathi Street, Nairobi.

Mr Mbaru was also in the team that oversaw the establishment of the African Stock Exchanges with NSE as a founder member and the secretariat.

In 1994, the NSE moved its offices and trading floor from the IPS Building to Nation Centre (from where it has since moved to Exchange Building in Westlands).

Mr Mbaru was chairman when the Kenya Airways #ticker:KQ IPO was launched in 1996 –  the largest IPO ever at the time – where more than 110,000 investors acquired a stake in the airline and the Kenyan Government cut shareholding from to 26 from 74 per cent.

The NSE 20 Share Index, a price-weighted index calculated as a mean of the top 20 best performing counters, was also incorporated at the time.

He remained chairman until 2001 when he took a break to return to the NSE as chairman and director years later. His latest position was director representing the interests of investment bankers and brokers.

Despite retiring from the NSE board, Mr Mbaru remains the chairman of Dyer & Blair Investment Bank, which he acquired from KCB in 1983. Mr Mbaru is a billionaire investor in several listed companies. Dyer and Blair was the transaction adviser in 2008 for Safaricom, the largest ever IPO on the NSE.

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