The launch of the Sh106.3 billion Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) IPO and South African lender Nedbank’s Sh109.9 billion offer for a 66 percent stake in NCBA Group have helped the Kenyan capital market continue the recent deals momentum that yielded transactions worth more than Sh700 billion in 2025.
Nedbank announced its bid for a controlling stake in NCBA on Wednesday, which will be executed through a cash and stock compensation plan.
Nedbank will cover 80 percent of the consideration by issuing its shares to eligible NCBA shareholders at a rate of 4.029 shares for every 100 NCBA units, with the remaining portion of 20 percent to be settled in cash at a price of Sh2,100 per 100 shares.
The share purchase deal is the third one involving a top-10 NSE firm in just over a month, following the December 2025 notices by South Africa’s Vodacom Group and Japan’s Asahi Holdings of major equity acquisitions in Safaricom and East African Breweries Plc (EABL) respectively.
Vodacom is buying a 15 percent Safaricom stake from the government for Sh204.3 billion, and a further 5 percent from its British parent Vodafone Group for Sh68.1 billion, which will ultimately see it raise its holding in the Kenyan telco to a controlling 55 percent from the current 35 percent.
Asahi entered into an agreement to purchase the 65 percent stake in EABL held by British multinational Diageo Plc last month, for a consideration of $2.354 billion (Sh303.6 billion), making it the biggest ever equity deal at the Nairobi bourse.
The Japanese beverage maker is also buying a 53.68 percent holding in spirits producer and importer UDV Kenya from Diageo for $646 million (Sh83.3 billion), raising the total value of the transaction to Sh387 billion.
Safaricom and EABL also floated five-year corporate bonds worth Sh20 billion and Sh16.8 billion respectively in the fourth quarter of last year, boosting activity on the segment that had seen limited traction in recent years.
On Monday, the NSE welcomed its first IPO in a decade, when the government opened the sale of a 65 percent stake in KPC—equivalent to 11.81 billion shares—to the public at Sh9 per unit, hoping to raise a gross amount of Sh106.31 billion.
The KPC offer is the first divestment from a government company through the stock market for nearly 18 years, with the last such sale having been the Safaricom IPO which was on sale in April 2008 with a haul of Sh51 billion.
The pipeline offer also marks an end to a decade-long IPO drought at the Nairobi bourse.
The most recent public share sales were the October 2015 listing of the Fahari Investment Reit (I-Reit), the NSE’s self-listing in September 2014 and Britam’s IPO in September 2011.
Meanwhile tier two lender Family Bank is expected to list via introduction within the first half of 2026, having received shareholder approval to go public in November.
It will join packaging firm SKL Group (Shri Krishana Overseas Plc) which entered the market by introduction in July 2025, and Sanlam’s Satrix MSCI World Feeder exchange traded fund (ETF) which also listed in July.
