Biwott son-in-law resigns from KenolKobil board

He runs a 75-year old European family business and has been married to a daughter of Mr Biwott for years.

“Mr Jacobsson has formally written to communicate his resignation from KenolKobil as a director,” a person familiar with the matter told the Business Daily.

It was not immediately clear why Mr Jacobsson stepped down from the oil marketer’s board. 

The oil marketer said in a brief that Mr Jacobsson has been the managing director of a property and investment company with operations in Stockholm, Sweden. The business was founded by his grandfather in 1938.

He has experience in Africa’s downstream oil business where KenolKobil has emerged as a major player with operations spanning 12 countries in the region.

He was among individuals tapped by Mr Biwott to the board of KenolKobil, one of the most secretive firms on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.

The company does not publish profiles of its directors in annual reports and little is known about the individuals that control over 70 per cent of its shares through several nominees accounts, some of them registered in foreign countries.

Sources however told the Business Daily that Mr Biwott is a significant shareholder in the oil marketer where he has had his nominees appointed to the board in the past.

The major owners of the company have expended a lot of effort in keeping their identities away from public scrutiny. They hold shares through companies, nominee accounts, and lawyers, with some even going to the extent of filing their names with a US custodian bank, State Street Bank.

A number of current and former directors of the company have said they don’t know its owners in response to our queries.

The Capital Markets Authority (CMA), which is charged with protecting minority shareholders’ interests and promoting market transparency, says it has no powers to order for disclosure of individuals behind shell companies and secret nominee accounts.

Records of shareholders behind the companies that own KenolKobil, however, provide strong pointers of its ownership.

Desterio Oyatsi, a prominent Nairobi-based advocate who has represented Mr Biwott in many court battles, is listed as a shareholder in at least three of the companies including Petroholdings with a 17.34 per cent stake and Highfield with a 12.46 per cent stake in the oil marketing firm.

Mr Oyatsi, who is also a director of KenolKobil, told the Business Daily in an earlier interview that he holds the oil marketer’s shares on behalf of his clients.

He, however, declined to disclose their identities, citing client confidentiality obligations. Names that appear as shareholders of KenolKobil include James Ruhiu Murigu and Samuel Maina Wamae who are listed as shareholders of Energy Resources Limited, which holds 5.99 per cent of KenolKobil. Mr Oyatsi’s partner at Shapley Barret, the late Mirabeau Humberto Da Gama-Rose, is also listed as a co-shareholder in some of the companies.

Chery Holdings is identified as a company that deals in real estate building and construction. It is largely an inactive company, whose last audited statements were filed in 2008.

Petroholdings, another shell company, is listed as a “securities dealing company and general merchants” with Mr Oyatsi and a Mrs Saadia Karimbuy Effendy listed as its two directors.

Highfield Limited, identified as a dealer in footwear, leather products and consumable products, is also another shell company that has never filed any returns since its registration in 2007.

The exit of Mr Jacobsson from KenolKobil marks another change in the company’s board this year after long-serving CEO Jacob Segman was replaced by David Ohana in July.

The oil marketer had earlier in May stripped Mr Segman of his additional role of chairman when it appointed James Mathenge, an ex-Caltex CEO, to the position.

Mr Segman, who remains a special advisor to the board, had served as the chief executive of KenolKobil for 16 years.

He joined KenolKobil in 1990 and was in April 2010 appointed chairman, making him the only chief executive to double as board chair among the companies listed at the NSE.