Kenyatta Family Biggest Shareholder in Newly Merged Bank

The Kenyatta family controls about 13.2% of the newly formed NCBA Group. The bank was formed after CBA Group and NIC Group merged about a month ago.

Before the Merger, the Kenyatta family owned about 24% of CBA Group but their stakes were due to down after NIC Group joined the party. The family, that comprises of President Kenyatta, his brother Muhoho and Mama Ngina Kenyatta, has a stake valued at Sh 6.6 billion.

The family of the late Phillip Ndegwa, which owned a big share of NIC Group, controls about 11.75% of the merger. The Ndegwa family owned 25% of the former NIC Group which slightly surpassed Kenyattas’ 24% share of the former CBA Group.

Besides the high-profile billionaires, CBA had other investors whose identities are cloaked in trusts and nominee accounts. Livingstone Registrars, for instance, had a 24.65 percent interest which transformed to a 13% share after the merger.

Officials of Livingstone Registrars said they are holding the shares on behalf of local investors whose identity they declined to disclose. Ropat Nominees and Ropat Trust Company also had a combined 27.88% interest in CBA which translated to 14.7% after the Merger.

When announcing the merger, CBA said that it had 34 shareholders but declined to name them. Shareholders at CBA were bound to get the larger stake in the merger based on the relatively bigger value the bank brought to the table.

Billionaire Naushad Merali who also had shares in CBA Group owns a stake of about Sh 1.9 billion.

New shares of the merged bank started trading on the Nairobi Stock Exchange at a price of Sh33.65, up 5.3 percent on Friday’s close price of Sh31.95.

The combined business of the two banks, which is now known as NCBA, climbed three places to rank sixth among the 10 banks listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) with a market valuation of Sh50.3 billion after listing additional 793.8 shares.

The new shares helped NCBA overtake Stanbic Holdings, I&M Holdings and DTB Group whose market value stood at Sh39.3 billion, Sh37.9 billion and Sh32.1 billion respectively.

The additional stocks, combined with a rally in NCBA’s share price, more than doubled the bank’s market value to Sh50.3 billion from Sh22.4 billion on Friday last week when it was ranked ninth.

The lender’s volume of outstanding shares has jumped to 1.49 billion units from the previous 703.9 million units.

The Merger made NCBA the third largest bank in the country with assets worth Ksh444.3 billion.