Safaricom IPO yielded Savvy kenyan Investors? Methinks not...

This week starts out with a lot of hullaballoo over the Safaricom IPO. With an oversubscription of 532%, the resultant allocation of shares and headache over refunds have left a bad taste in the mouths of many.

After harvesting every penny from every possible source, including going out and taking loans to invest in the IPO most of the Kenyans who put money into Safaricom definitely do not *feel* like savvy investors - especially when they are receiving in many cases a refund of the majority of the money they forked out (some sources say as much as 3/4 refund).

Nevertheless - the one major success that I would attribute to the Safaricom IPO is the heightened awareness of the value of securities such as shares - as opposed to the more traditional brick & mortar investments.