Quickmart has cut the allocation of shares to local investors in its initial public offering (IPO) to less than half after high-net-worth investors from the US and Britain splashed Sh7.1 billion on the retailer’s shares.
The retailer has amended the share allocation in a review that has made local investors the biggest losers.
Local investors, both retail and institutional, will receive a maximum of 44 percent of the two billion shares on offer, or half of the supermarket chain being sold via the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), down from the initial 67 percent.
The retailer had offered 13 percent of the shares worth Sh1.95 billion to wealthy investors, known as cornerstone investors, who are firms or funds that agree in advance to buy a specific stake in an IPO, signalling confidence in an offer to other buyers.
It has now increased their allocation to Sh7.2 billion or 48 percent of the two billion shares, in a deal that will offer the high-net-worth investors a 24 percent stake in the retailer upon its listing on the NSE on November 11.
This follows the increase in cornerstone investors to four after a US-based investment firm, 337 Frontier, and UK fund manager, RWC LLP, bought shares worth Sh1.94 billion and Sh1.3 billion, respectively.
They joined an arm of the UK government, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), which will buy shares worth Sh1.94 billion each or a 6.5 percent stake in Quickmart.
The scramble for shares by the cornerstone investors has also seen the allocation reserved for foreign investors cut to eight percent from 20 percent, giving them a four percent stake.
Quickmart owners are selling half of the retailer through the IPO, which opened on October 5 and closes in October, with the supermarket chain’s owners sharing the Sh15 billion.
“The indicative allocations are not binding and may be adjusted by the issuer and selling shareholder in consultation with the lead transaction advisors depending on the level and composition of demand received during the offer period and subject to applicable regulatory requirements,” Quickmart says in its supplementary information memorandum.
“Quickmart Plc and the selling shareholder, in consultation with the lead transaction advisors, have accepted applications from the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office acting through its MOBILIST Programme; RWC Asset Management LLP; 337 Frontier Capital LP and have admitted each of them as cornerstone investors alongside the International Finance Corporation (IFC),” Quickmart said in the amended memo dated October 23.
The cornerstone investors are betting on dividends and outsized returns from Quickmart upon their exit, on the back of the retailer’s expansion plans and steady shareholder payouts.
The British FCDO announced it will buy a 6.5 percent stake in the retailer via MOBILIST, a UK government programme that uses taxpayers’ cash to buy stakes in private companies.
This will mark MOBILIST’s third mega deal in a firm linked to the NSE as it eyes a new listing to attract other high-net-worth investors to the offer.
For the IFC, this is not the first equity investment in a Kenyan retailer, having participated in a consortium that bought and sold a 31.5 percent stake in Naivas between 2020 and 2022 for a tidy profit.
Quickmart is now the second largest retail chain in Kenya behind Naivas by store count and turnover, with an estimated 15 percent share of the market. The company has a current store count of 72, in 16 counties.
In the year ended December 2025, Quickmart reported a 33 percent growth in net profit to Sh1.51 billion. Sales rose by 9.3 percent to Sh50.43 billion in the year.
The retailer paid its shareholders a dividend of Sh1.65 billion, representing a payout ratio of 109 percent, and is aiming to distribute at least 80 percent of its earnings to shareholders in the coming years.
Quickmart says it intends to more than double revenue and add at least 50 stores over the next four years.
Quickmart Plc is aiming for annual revenue of $1 billion (Sh130 billion) from about Sh60 billion this financial year. The retailer plans to increase the tally of stores to 125.
Quickmart owners, through Sokoni Retail Kenya Limited (SRKL), are selling two billion shares at Sh7.50 each, providing a multi-billion-shilling partial exit route for private equity firm Adenia and the founders of the retail chain.
In SRKL, Adenia holds a 50.79 percent stake; the family of Quickmart founder, the late John Kinuthia (31.83 percent), Tumaini Supermarket founders (12.02 percent), and the CEO of the retail chain, Peter Kang’iri, has a 5.36 percent stake.
They will all cede half their ownership in a transaction that reveals the outsized growth in value of the chain under Adenia, which first bought Tumaini Supermarket in 2018 and the following year acquired Quickmart– which were merged in 2020.
This will add billions of shillings to the worth of the founders of Tumaini Supermarket and Quickmart, which were smaller retailers in a market then dominated by Tuskys and Naivas.
Adenia will bank Sh7.62 billion from the sale of 1.06 billion shares that represent half of its 2.03 billion units in Quickmart.
The fund acquired a 55 percent majority equity stake in Tumaini in 2018 and a 51 percent stake in Quickmart in 2019, before merging the two units under the Quickmart brand in January 2020.
Quickmart CEO, who joined the company in 2019, is set to earn Sh803.3 million in the sale of half of his 214.2 million shares in the retailer.
The Kinuthia family is in line for a total windfall of Sh4.77 billion as they cede half of their 1.27 billion shares in Sokoni Retail.
Tumaini founders Moses Nditika, Joram Ngeruro Njoga and Elijah Omullo Okello will collectively bank Sh1.8 billion from the sale, courtesy of their holding of 12.02 percent in Sokoni Retail.