Sanlam Kenya Plc, a diversified financial services group listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange(NSE), has rebranded to Sanlam Allianz Holdings (Kenya) Plc.
This aligns the Kenyan subsidiary with the global Sanlam–Allianz strategic partnership and unified name tag across its African markets. But for the Kenyan firm, a subsidiary of South African Sanlam Group based in Cape Town, name change is just part of the deal.
Allianz SE, the global financial services company based in Germany Group, has come into the Kenyan business to bridge the financial deficit that has been there and also enhance management competency to turn things around, and turn the Kenyan business back to profitability.
The new name tag comes after Jubilee Holdings exited the general insurance business and terminate its dealings with both Sanlam and Allianz. Now, the new outfit has taken over all operations previously run by Jubilee Insurance across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and Mauritius.
What the Sanlam rebranding means for Investors
The rebrand signals a sharper focus. The Kenyan firm will concentrate on life insurance, pensions, and investments, while SanlamAllianz Holdings runs the general insurance portfolio across East Africa.
With a 71.5% strategic stake held by SanlamAllianz and Hubris Holdings, the Sanlam Kenya business is positioned to benefit from scale, integration, and Allianz’s global expertise.
Available data shows that this counter has gained 79% in price year-to-date, the counter currently trading at KSh 8.86. The share begun the year at KSh 4.95. Any restructuring process is usually priced in as stagnation on the share price performance.
Top Shareholders of Sanlam Kenya
Baloobhal Patel, a prominent Kenyan business is one of the top individual shareholders at Sanlam Kenya, with a 21% stake through his Aksaya Investments. The billionaire also has stakes in Bamburi cement, Absa Kenya, Williamson Tea, Diamond Trust Bank and Safaricom.
Dr John PN Simba, Chairman of the firm’s Board of Directors, owns 106,950 shares at the firm.
Other top shareholders at the listed firm, based on the register of members as at 31 December 2024 include Mwangi, Peter Kingori with 2,250,080 shares or 9.78%, Patel, Anjay Vithalbhai with 847,800 shares or 3.68%, Malde, Anilkumar Virpar with 452,550 shares or 1.97%, Mohamed, Adan Abdulla with 389,250 shares or 1.69%, and Mucheru, Elijah with 387,300 shares or 1.68%.
Other owners of financial services firm are Maitha, Anthony Leshan with 372,600 shares or 1.62%, Patel Dahilaxmi Mangalbhai with 360,003 shares or 1.56%, Bid, Keval Ashvin with 315,000 shares or 1.37%, John Richard Githere with 300,000 shares or 1.30% and Malde, Urvi Harakhchand Virpar with 268,800 shares or a 1.17% stake in Sanlam Kenya.
Sanlam Financial Health
The financial services firm did a KSh 2.5 billion rights issue to pay off its KSh 4 billion owned to Stanbic Kenya. But while this transaction propped up shareholders’ funds, it also ended up diluting the ownership of the then shareholders by close to 77%, triggering a 43% drop in share prices.
Capital Markets Authority(CMA) later granted the Kenyan firm majority shareholder Hubris Holdings and Sanlam Allianz Africa, an exemption from making a mandatory takeover offer after their control rose to 71.47% through the rights issue.
The underwriter has since recovered and strengthened its asset base and capitalization levels but its core challenge has remained restoring profitability. The underwriter’s H1, 2025 financials show an 89% drop in net earnings from KSh 282.8m in 2024 to KSh 30.9m. Earnings per share, an indicator of profitability declined to KSh 0.10 down from KSh 1.88 on H1 2024.
Its balance sheet size grew 5.6% to KSh 41.4 billion while its operating expenses tripled to KSh 63.9 billion in H1 2025 from KSh 20.9 billion in H1 2024.
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