How the Mukuhas built a tiny shop into retail giant Naivas

Naivas Supermarkets, whose chairman Simon Gashwe Mukuha died on Monday started as a tiny village shop at Rongai trading centre on the fringes of Nakuru town.

The supermarket chain started off as Rongai Self Service Stores, a family shop about three years ago.

Indeed, the tale of one of Kenya’s leading supermarket chain, cannot be complete without the mention of Nakuru, where it sprung up before its transformation into a retail giant.

Naivas founder Peter Mukuha Kago died in 2010 and left his children among them David Mukuha (director) and the Simon Mukuha as the heirs of the business.

Other siblings who own shares in Naivas include ther sisters Grace Wambui and Linet Wairimu. The late Gashwe was the administrator of their late fathers’ estate.

He owned a 25 percent stake in the multi-billion shilling estate. His brother David also has a 25 percent stake, whereas the two sisters each own 15 percent of the retailer.

The Mukuhas hail from Naivasha in Nakuru County.

In a past interview with the Daily Nation, Mr Gashwe’s brother David Mukuha revealed the humble beginnings of Naivas Supermarket.

“It first started as a small family business serving the village of Rongai in the outskirts of Nakuru town in 1992. I started it after convincing my brother, Simon Gashwe, that this type of business held the future for us and our family. We raised Sh200,000, which we used as capital for our retail store,” he said.

The Rongai Self Service Stores was registered as a company in 1993. Two years later, the family business grew and spread with a new branch in Elburgon, near Molo.

According to a family source, the Mukuhas ploughed back the profits from the business and opened another branch in Naivasha town, which they called Naivasha Self Service Stores.

In 1996, the family operated three outlets in Rongai, Elburgon, and Naivasha with the one in Naivasha serving as the head office, before rebranding to Naivas in 2007.

In Nairobi, it opened the first branch on Ronald Ngala Street, closing down its outlets in Rongai and Elburgon.

Naivas now has 13 branches in major towns across the country: Nairobi, Naivasha, Eldoret, Machakos, Embu, Kitui, Garissa and Narok. It employs thousands of workers in its outlets across the country.

Nakuru is also home to at least four dominant supermarket brands, including Tuskys Supermaket.

Tuskys, for instance, traces its roots to a small grocery shop in Rongai, Nakuru County, started in the 1970s. Tuskys founder Joram Kamau, set up a shop he named Magic Super Store in Rongai in Nakuru County.

His shop morphed into Tusker Mattresses, eventually opening a supermarket on Pundit Nihru Street in Nakuru town and another branch on Mfang’ano street in Nairobi, before it grew into Tuskys.

Interestingly Joram Kamau was a brother of Peter Mukuha Kago and the duo helped each other nurture the family businesses to the giant supermarket chains, they are today.

Tuskys, recently announced a three-year plan to increase its branch network in Kenya and Uganda to 100.

It is running 64 retail outlets, in an expansion likely to be completed by 2020.

Others that also started off in Nakuru include Nakumatt, founded in Nakuru by Has Hashmuk Shah, the Haraka Kanini Enterprise, which deals in retail and wholesale; it shifted from Kinangop.

Gilani’s Supermarket, Stagemart Supermarket and Rivanas Supermarkets are others that were started in Nakuru.

Naivas founder’s demise in 2010 exposed a fissure in the family that ended up in a court case over succession of Naivas.

The court case was triggered when, in August 2013, Massmart, a South Africa-based subsidiary of retail giant Walmart, offered to acquire a 51 per cent stake in Naivas at a cost of Sh3 billion.

The eldest sibling of the family Newton Kagira Mukuha, sued and asked the court to block the sale. He also sought to be recognised as a heir of the multi-billion-shilling supermarket chain, but he lost on October 10,2016 when the courts dismissed his objection to a Will written by his late father.