Formerly Safaricom Limited, has changed it’s name to Safaricom PLC to comply with regulations effective from 31st January 2018. According to Kenyan laws under companies act, section 53 states that a company that’s both a limited company and public company must be registered with a name that ends with “public limited company” – PLC. while one that is limited company as well as private company, be registed with limited – LTD.
During a shareholders meeting last year, it was approved for Safaricom to change the company name from Safaricom Limited to Safaricom Plc. “All contractual relationships and obligations that the company has with its customers, partners and other stakeholders are not affected by this change of name,” said Kathryne Maundu, Company Secretary.
A few weeks ago, Safaricom PLC got a reprieve when the firm contracted to assess competition in the telecom industry backed down from an earlier proposal to split the company’s business. A UK based consultancy firm Analysys Mason said it changed its tune after consultations with industry players. A previous draft of the study’s report had proposed the split of Safaricom and M-Pesa (mobile money transfer service) branch, both in operations and financial reporting, which would in effect have created a new entity. As a consequence, Safaricom lost it’s twitter badge after changing it’s name there as well.
“This remedy could be seen as disproportionate and constraining the CA’s (Communications Authority) discretion to act as it saw fit at the time. The final report is therefore silent on what further remedies the CA might consider,” said the firm in Nairobi during a public debate where it presented the report titled Telecommunication Competition Market Study in Kenya.
