Charles Field-Marsham, the taekwondo black belt holder, has just delivered a spinning back kick — figuratively speaking.
The top finishing move sees him handover a 30-year stock brokerage, founded in the depths of Kenya’s political and economic turmoil, to a new group of local investors.
Charles Field-Marsham business has thrived a long way from home, Toronto, Canada.
For the Wall Street banker, founding a stock brokerage in Kenya in 1994 was the exception and never the rule, coming from a background where even today, Kenya and the wider African continent is still seen as a frontier.
If you avidly follow the coverage of the financial world, global market talks outside the United States will mostly mention London, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Hong-Kong, the Middle East sometimes, but barely and sometimes never Africa or Kenya.
Charles, however, seems to have somewhat perfected the art of finding the diamond in the rough, having made his call on establishing Kestrel Capital in Kenya; some three decades ago. A Kenyan connection, however, helped along the way.
“When I married Rita (Charles is married to the daughter of former Cabinet Minister Nicholas Biwott), I told her the story of what happened to Latin America, that the countries came through, and she was very confident that Kenya would also come through,” he says.
“I had worked on Wall Street for a couple of years and it's a fully developed market controlled by huge investment banks. I didn’t see myself working for someone else in the future. I came to Kenya and saw this huge opportunity because the country was in such a huge economic turmoil.”
Charles’s story provides a key business lesson of never letting a good crisis pass you by. He shares his learnings from the likes of Warren Buffet-being greedy when everybody is fearful and being fearful when everybody is nervous.
Rockefeller’s- investing when there is blood on the street-is also a mantra for him and he adds- ‘when the blood is yet to be cleaned up’. Charles however warns of investing blindly, stating the role of research cannot be overlooked.
“The market (in Kenya) had just opened to foreign investors; foreign exchange controls had also been removed but nobody was catering to foreign investors.
"There was no research or marketing. I started writing research reports and travelling the continent selling the story of Kenya. I did not even sell individual counters like EABL.”
Even with the usual ups and downs that have brought Kestrel to the top and edge it out, Kestrel remains among the big birds of the local stock market having ranked as the 10th largest stockbroker by commissions last year.
Kestrel is named after a bird of prey. His decision to move on from the business has not been influenced by usual factors such as a faltering trade or mismanagement, but rather a yearning to hand over the baton to a younger crop of leaders including the firm’s Chief Executive Officer Francis Mwangi, who has already been running the brokerage on a day-to-day basis since 2019.
The new owners who also include Eric Rwenji-the chairman of Theo Capital Holdings have already delivered the largest monthly turnover for the business since taking over formerly in September.
This if anything, shows that Charles leaves his brainchild in great hands.
“I am an old guy (looks can be deceiving, he doesn’t look as old as he suggests), sitting in Toronto spending most of my time in North America. It is not right for me to run the business anymore. It should be owned by Kenyans who will generate returns for themselves and take Kestrel to new heights,” he adds.
“It makes me so happy as I believe the stock brokerage needs at least two people who can partner and build together. I believe the new owners who are young Kenyans will take Kestrel to heights I wouldn’t do. I live in Canada, and I am only in Kenya often, I don't think that adds value.”
His exit from the brokerage is not however the end of his interests in Kenya, besides family visits most definitely.
Charles has invested in Pan African Equipment, an asset firm that’s also a distributor for Komatsu which was founded a little after Kestrel and has operations in Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone in addition to its Dubai headquarters.
“The majority of my net worth is invested in Africa.”
Charles Field-Marsham remains as enthusiastic about Kenya as he was 30 years ago and expects its young vibrant population and diverse economy to deliver the goods.
As openly as he speaks about his achievements in Kenya, he is also as open about challenges encountered.
Charles has and still defends himself against the findings of a 2004 report by risk consultants Kroll Associates which linked him to his father-in-law's alleged corrupt dealings.
He has also been personally investigated and cleared by the market’s regulator after an insider-trading scandal rocked his brokerage business in 2018.
On the findings of the Kroll report, he maintains that the dossier was false but acknowledges the Capital Markets Authority probe which saw the ouster of its long-serving chief executive officer, Andre DeSimone.
“It was not factual, and I got thrown into it but I refuted them. It was not fact based but it was a challenge,” he says.
“The insider trading scandal was also a challenge and everybody at Kestrel including myself was investigated and it turned out that one of our employees had given information.
"You have tremendous challenges in business, and some think it will break you, but they make you stronger. It’s like breaking your leg.”
