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Carbacid Investments Plc, the Nairobi-listed carbon dioxide producer controlled by Kenyan investor Baloobhai Patel, increased its annual profit by 12.2% and kept its dividend unchanged, handing Patel's holding company another payout of about Sh254 million ($2 million).
Net profit rose to Sh1.13 billion ($8.7 million) in the year to July 31, from about Sh1 billion a year earlier. Gains on the company's investments in listed equities helped lift earnings. Carbacid declared a dividend of Sh2 a share, the same as last year, for a total payout of Sh509.7 million ($3.9 million).
The company had signaled a steadier year at the halfway mark. Net profit for the six months to January rose 7% to Sh465 million on revenue of Sh976.3 million, as competition in the carbon dioxide market increased and income from government bonds softened.
Patel's stake
Patel owns 49.9% of Carbacid through Aksaya Investment Holdings Ltd., a private company to which he transferred the shares in 2023 as part of his succession planning. He built the stake over several years of buying shares on the market.
Carbacid has 254.85 million shares in issue, which puts Aksaya's holding at about 127.2 million shares. At Sh16.75 a share, the company's latest closing price, the stake is worth about Sh2.13 billion ($16.4 million). Carbacid has a market value of about Sh4.27 billion ($32.9 million).
At Sh2 a share, Aksaya's portion of the dividend comes to about Sh254 million.
Carbacid makes and sells food-grade carbon dioxide, used by brewers and soft-drink bottlers, from natural deposits in Kenya's Rift Valley, and supplies customers across East Africa. It also holds a portfolio of listed shares and bonds, which has become a growing source of its profit.
A wider portfolio
Carbacid is one of the main holdings in a stock portfolio that has made Patel one of the biggest individual investors on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. He also holds stakes in Absa Bank Kenya Plc, Co-operative Bank of Kenya Ltd., Sanlam Kenya Plc and BOC Kenya Plc, and has moved several of them into family investment companies in recent years.
Figures were converted at KSh129.9 to the dollar.
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