An arm of the UK government has deepened its investments in Kenyan capital markets with the purchase of Sh1.94 billion shares in Quickmart’s initial public offering (IPO).
The United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (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 Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) as it eyes new listing to attract other high-net worth investors to the offers.
The Quickmart deal expands MOBILIST’s investments in the Kenyan capital market to Sh5 billion, accounting for about 75 percent of what it has invested in Africa so far.
MOBILIST is one of five investment vehicles of the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and it invests primarily in capital markets products, specifically to mobilise additional institutional capital in new listings.
Before Quickmart, MOBILIST had invested in Africa Logistics Properties’ industrial real estate investment trust (ALP Reit) and the Spearhead Africa Infrastructure Fund (SAIF).
It invested $24 million (Sh3.1 billion) together with the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), also an investment vehicle under FCDO, to support the listing of ALP Reit on the NSE.
The Reit raised about Sh5 billion, providing investors with access to income-generating warehouse and logistics assets.
In May, MOBILIST made a $9 million (Sh1.2 billion) anchor investment in SAIF, Kenya’s first unit trust infrastructure fund, which raised a total of Sh3.4 billion.
“The investment builds on MOBILIST’s 2024 partnership with the NSE to expand the range of listed investment opportunities that drive development and enable greater capital markets participation by Kenyan institutions, including pension funds,” said the retailer in a statement.
MOBILIST’s investments are intended not only to support individual transactions but also to demonstrate that developing-market assets can attract investors through public markets.
It will join the International Finance Corporation (IFC)—the World Bank’s private investment arm— as a cornerstone investor in the Sh15 billion IPO, which has valued Quickmart at Sh30 billion.
The IFC has also committed to buying a similar stake of 6.5 percent for Sh1.94 billion, providing a boost in confidence to an IPO, whose offer will close on October 30.
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.
IFC and MOBILIST are hoping for a similar outsized return from Quickmart upon exit, on the back of the retailer’s expansion plans and steady dividend payouts.
Cornerstone investors are institutional or high net worth investors who agree in advance to buy a specific stake in an IPO, signalling confidence in an offer to other buyers.
The IFC, however, said its participation in the sale is not an endorsement or recommendation to other investors to participate in the IPO.
In Quickmart’s IPO, current owners who include Mauritius-registered private equity fund Adenia Partners, the founders of Quickmart and Tumaini supermarkets and the retailer’s chief executive officer Peter Kang’iri are offloading two billion shares, equivalent to a 50 percent stake.
The IPO could, however, usher in other large investors into the business, given the allocation criteria that sets aside 35 percent of the offer shares for Kenyan institutional investors, equivalent to an ultimate holding of 17.5 percent of the company’s issued shares.
Local retail and foreign investors have been allocated 20 percent each, East African Community investors 12 percent, and the IFC 13 percent. These limits can be adjusted depending on subscription levels per investor category.
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.
