The National Treasury is planning to sell part of its 35 percent ownership in Safaricom, which is Kenya’s largest telecommunications company.
Via a post on X by The Kenya Times, treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi stated that the government’s share in the company is valued at about Ksh280.5 billion.
This move is aimed at helping the government raise funds through privatisation before the deadline of June 2026. Safaricom stands out as the only State-owned business with the capacity to bring in such a large amount of money in the short time remaining.
The target is to raise Ksh149 billion through this process. Mbadi explained that selling shares in other State companies is not realistic at the moment because many of them have suffered losses for years, have been poorly managed or are not structured as limited liability companies, which makes them unattractive to serious investors.
This makes Safaricom the government’s best and most reliable option to hit its privatisation goals. In his own words to Business Daily, Mbadi said, “Safaricom is the big one that can give us the kind of money that we are looking for.”
Currently, the ownership of Safaricom is shared between the government and Vodacom, each holding 35 percent, while Vodafone owns 5 percent and the remaining 25 percent is held by individual and institutional investors. The sale could be done through a new Initial Public Offering, known as a secondary IPO, or a block sale to a wealthy investor.
A secondary IPO involves the government offering part of its stake in the company to the public, but instead of the money going to the company, it goes directly into the government’s bank account, known as the exchequer.
This approach would not be new for Kenya. Back in 2008, the government offered 25 percent of its shares in Safaricom through an IPO.
That offer attracted over 860,600 investors who applied for 8.6 billion shares, which was 532 percent more than the 1.36 billion shares that were available at the time.
This shows how much interest there is in Safaricom’s shares when made available to the public. The country was also able to raise Ksh51.75 billion in a bond sale linked to that IPO, which was far above the initial target of Ksh40 billion.This upcoming sale is expected to draw interest from international private equity firms.
Experts suggest that if the government sells between 5 to 10 percent of its Safaricom stake at the current share price of Ksh19.90, it could bring in anywhere from Ksh39.8 billion to Ksh79.7 billion. This would be a major boost to the Treasury’s financial position and help meet its privatisation target.
The final decision on how the sale will be carried out is still pending, but it is clear that Safaricom will play a major role in raising money for the government in the near future.
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