Safaricom
chief executive Bob Collymore has not heard from the company’s board of
directors about the renewal of his employment contract, which expires
in four months’ time.
Mr Collymore’s contract ends in August, having been extended
for two years in 2013. There is a strong expectation it will be renewed
again in the absence of any overt succession planning.
The Safaricom boss took over from founding CEO
Michael Joseph in August 2010, and has seen the telecommunications
company grow into a regional giant by profitability, balance sheet size
and stock market capitalisation.
“The Board has not made any decisions on any
renewal of the CEO contract which expires in August 2015,” said Mr
Collymore in an email response to a query by the Business Daily. “There are no other directors whose contracts are coming up for renewal,” he added.
He started his tenure at the height of a vicious
price war that lasted until September 2011, an experience that saw him
put more emphasis on growth of the telco’s non-voice revenue with a
special focus on M-Pesa and data business.
The market value of the Nairobi Securities
Exchange-listed telco has soared to a record Sh630 billion from the
range of about Sh300 billion it was valued at less than two years ago.
Pre-tax profit under Collymore has increased to
Sh34.9 billion in the year ended March 2014 from Sh20.97 billion in the
year ended March 2010 before he took over.
Safaricom’s revenue has also grown to Sh144.6 billion as at the year ended March 2014 from Sh94.8 billion in March 2011.
Mr Collymore’s tenure has also seen Safaricom’s
voice customers grow to 21.5 million as at the last financial year from
17.1 million customers in the year ended 2011.
Its M-Pesa clients have also grown to 12.1 million
from 7.7 million in year ended March 2011, while mobile data customers
increased to 9.5 million from 3.4 million customers in the period.
Some of the notable innovations launched during
Collymore’s tenure is the M-Shwari product in partnership with
Commercial Bank of Africa. M-Shwari offers customers a platform to save
money on their mobile phones and later borrow loans that are repayable
within a month.
CBA has advanced loans amounting to Sh29 billion,
up from Sh7 billion in February last year. Early last month CBA
announced that it had signed up its tenth million customer, making it
Kenya’s biggest bank by customer numbers.
Recently Safaricom, in partnership with KCB, launched a mobile phone-based loan borrowing service for amounts repayable at a fixed interest rate of between four and 12 per cent.
KCB M-Pesa gives Safaricom customers access to loans of between Sh50 and Sh1 million repayable for between one and six months.
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