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KCB pays Sh12.8 billion dividend after NBK sale
From left: Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) Kenya Group Chairman Dr Joseph Kinyua, KCB Group CEO Paul Russo and KCB Kenya Group Finance Director Lawrence Kimathi during the banks Half Year 2025 Financial Results announcement held at Radission Blu Hotel on August 13, 2025.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu | Nation Media Group
KCB Group will pay its shareholders Sh12.85 billion in dividends for the half year to June 2024, half of which is from a special dividend from the proceeds of the sale of National Bank of Kenya (NBK) to Nigeria’s top lender Access Bank Plc in May.
The tier one bank, which on Wednesday announced an 8.1 percent growth in net profit to Sh31.5 billion for the half-year period, said it will pay an interim dividend of Sh2 per share, and a special dividend of a similar amount.
The Sh4 cumulative payout from the two dividends represents a near-tripling of its interim distribution in the same period last year, when it paid shareholders Sh1.50 per share for a total payment of Sh4.82 billion.
It will also be higher than the total of Sh9.6 billion paid out for the 2024 full year, when the final dividend stood at Sh1.50 to take the total payout to Sh3 per share.
KCB completed the sale of NBK at the end of May. KCB said it received Sh14.2billion from the transaction, which was based on December 2024 figures.
The lender’s management, however, added that the valuation could change given that the sale transaction was concluded five months later on May 30, 2025.
“The strong half-year performance and the projected trajectory of the business has allowed us a great bandwidth to propose a historic special and interim dividend to shareholders,” said KCB Group Chairman Joseph Kinyua.
The lender added that part of the proceeds of the NBK sale will be reinvested in its Tanzania subsidiary, where it is looking to grow market share. KCB has subsidiaries in Rwanda, the DRC, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and South Sudan.
The group posted a net profit of Sh31.5 billion for the six months ended June, up from Sh29.1 billion in a similar period last year. It rode on lending its liquidity to other banking and financial institutions while cutting its interest expenses to see its net interest income rise by 12.7 percent to Sh69.1 billion.
Non-funded income fell by 11.3 percent to Sh29.53 billion, largely due to a 48 percent drop in foreign exchange trading income to Sh5.2 billion.
The banks' deposit base remained flat at Sh1.49 trillion, with its interest payments to customers declining 3.3 percent to Sh24.7 billion, riding on declining interest rates.
Its loan book expanded six percent to Sh1.09 trillion, earning it interest income of Sh70.5 billion. The group’s non-performing loans stood at Sh221 billion, up from Sh212 billion in June 2024.
Non-performing loans have been a headache for commercial banks owing to tough economic conditions in most East African countries.
KCB said its goal is to reduce its overall ratio of NPLs to gross loans from the current 18.7 percent to between 14 and 16 percent.
The Kenyan unit, which is the key contributor to the group’s performance, reported a net profit of Sh22.8 billion, up from Sh21.2 billion in the six months of 2024. The regional subsidiaries' contribution remained at 28 percent of the net earnings despite growing to Sh8.6 billion, up from Sh7.9 billion.
