New frontiers of financial public relations: the relationship between listing on the Nairobi securities exchange and changes in a company‟s publicity and net profit

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between listing a company on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and change in its media profile or publicity and whether this is related to the company‟s performance in terms of net profit. The publicity or media reports on its activities are a major concern for its owners (those who bought shares at the listing stage and after) who are keen on a good return to their investment. More specifically, this research compares the two most profitable companies and the two least profitable companies, in both pre-listing and post-listing stages, with reference to the period since 2006 when the latest wave of firms going public began. It looks at the two groups of companies in each period and then compares them to see how they were covered by the media. Using content analysis under conditions of stratified sampling and then using the difference-between-means to test the hypothesis, the study finds that both most and least profitable companies, taken separately, see their media coverage increase significantly after they are listed on the NSE compared to the pre-listing stage. However, the difference-between-means test also reveals that the most profitable companies do not exhibit any significant difference from the least profitable companies in the amount of the media coverage they receive either before or after listing on the stock exchange. It is therefore concluded that the key thing, in the context of this research, influencing the amount of press coverage for any type of company is the change from being unquoted to being a quoted company on the NSE. This has implications for firms wanting to increase the amount of publicity they receive as well as enabling the public to understand their strategies and products and probably helping in branding in a competitive market