Editor’s note: This is general educational material on how a reporting rule works. It is not investment advice and it does not evaluate any company. It is based on the Kenyan regulations, the Central Bank guideline and the published results listed at the end.
Analysis: two calendars, one results season
The practical effect is that a Nairobi investor reads two different documents under the same heading. A bank’s third quarter statement is a supervisory disclosure in a Central Bank format, cleared by the supervisor and signed by named officers. A non-bank issuer’s half year statement is an IFRS condensed interim report with selected explanatory notes and earnings per share on the face of the income statement. They serve different readers and are not the same product, even when both appear in the same newspaper page.
The deadlines happen to converge at midyear. A December year end issuer’s interim reporting date is 30th June, and the securities rules give it two months, to 31st August. The Central Bank gives banks the same 31st August for the period ending 30th June. So the June numbers arrive together across the market, while the March and September bank statements have no counterpart from the rest of the exchange.
Year ends pull the calendar apart again. Safaricom Plc reported audited results for the year ended 31-Mar-26, with total group revenue of 427,559.1 million shillings against 388,688.9 million in the prior year and profit for the year of 73,676.0 million against 45,757.2 million. On a March year end the four month audited deadline falls in July, and the half year interim date falls in September, which is out of phase with every December year end issuer on the exchange. Nairobi does not have one results season; it has several overlapping ones, and the overlap is a function of year ends rather than of rules.
What none of this establishes is whether more frequent reporting produces better informed prices. The regulations do not claim it does. They tie frequency to consistency instead, requiring an issuer that has started reporting quarterly to keep doing so, and requiring that frequency not change the measurement of the annual result. That is a comparability rule, not a disclosure quality rule. The one gap it leaves is at entry: an issuer that has never adopted quarterly reporting is under no obligation to start, so the market has no continuous quarterly series for most listed companies, and no requirement that an issuer explain why it reports twice rather than four times. A reader comparing two Nairobi issuers would check the year end first, then whether the quarterly statements on offer are securities-law interim reports or Central Bank prudential publications, because the two are not interchangeable.
What the documents say
Follow the Nairobi results calendar for a year and the rhythm looks inconsistent. Banks post numbers four times. Most other issuers post twice. Neither group is breaking a rule, because the two groups answer to different rulebooks, and only one of those rulebooks makes quarterly reporting compulsory.
What securities law actually requires
The continuing obligations in the Capital Markets (Public Offers, Listings and Disclosures) Regulations, 2023 define the vocabulary before setting the deadlines. Interim financial statements means half year financial statements. Annual financial statements means year end audited financial statements. Quarterly financial statements are defined separately as a financial statement, other than an interim or audited financial statement, covering a period of three months, issued in the course of a financial year on a best practice basis.
That last phrase carries the whole distinction. The mandatory obligations are two. Every issuer of securities to the public approved by the Authority, whether or not the securities are listed, must prepare and publish an interim report within two months of the respective interim reporting date. Every such issuer must also prepare and publish an annual report containing audited annual financial statements within four months of the close of its financial year. Quarterly reporting is not in that list.
It is, however, sticky once adopted. All issuers who have adopted a quarterly reporting practice must continue to issue reports on a quarterly basis in order to maintain consistency, except for reports issued under the separate rule for arrangers of fixed income securities, who submit quarterly returns in the prescribed format by the 10th of the month following the end of the quarter. Publish is defined broadly: making the information available on the official website, in a newspaper of national circulation, by delivery to the exchange’s electronic mail addresses, or as the Authority may otherwise prescribe. Interim and quarterly statements must stay on the issuer’s website until the equivalent statements for the next financial year appear.
The content rules are the same whichever cycle an issuer runs. Interim reports must follow IFRS and include at a minimum a condensed statement of financial position, a condensed income statement and statement of comprehensive income, a condensed statement of changes in equity, a condensed cash flow statement and selected explanatory notes. Basic and diluted earnings per share go on the face of the income statement. The notes must explain seasonality or cyclicality of interim operations, unusual items, and changes in estimates, reported on a year-to-date basis. The frequency of reporting must not affect the measurement of the annual result, which is why interim measurement is made year-to-date. Announcements of a dividend, a capitalisation or rights issue, a book closure, a capital return or sales and turnover must be issued to coincide with the release of the annual, interim or quarterly statements.
Why the banks are different
A licensed bank in Kenya reports quarterly because its supervisor says so, not because it is listed. The Central Bank of Kenya’s Guideline on Publication of Financial Statements and Other Disclosures, CBK/PG/10, is issued under section 33(4) of the Banking Act, took effect on 1st January 2013 and replaced the version of 1st January 2006. It applies to all institutions licensed and operating in Kenya, listed or not.
Its schedule is explicit. Every institution must publish unaudited financial statements in a newspaper of nationwide circulation, on a weekday excluding public holidays, in the format the Central Bank prescribes, at quarterly intervals: the period ending 31st March by 31st May, the period ending 30th June by 31st August, and the period ending 30th September by 30th November. The period ending 31st December follows the audited route instead, under which institutions publish audited statements within three months of the end of every financial year.
Two features have no equivalent in the securities rules. Every quarterly and annual publication must first be submitted to the Central Bank for clearance at least two weeks before it appears, with detailed reconciliations for any differences against the prudential returns already filed for the same cut-off date. And every publication must be signed by the chief executive officer and at least one director. The prescribed formats for unaudited statements are deliberately similar to those for audited statements, to facilitate comparisons, and each quarterly newspaper publication must carry a note pointing readers to the institution’s website and the physical address of its head office.
