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The Philip Ndegwa family's multi-billion shilling business empire is about to expand once again with the moves by NCBA Group and ICEA Lion Group to combine control of their separate insurance and property firms.
The Ndegwas, who own the majority of NCBA Group with 14.94%, revealed last week that they were going to purchase an additional 66.67% of AIG Kenya Insurance Company Limited from an American conglomerate.
Additionally, the family owns a majority of ICEA Lion Asset Management Limited, which is in the process of purchasing retail investors from the real estate investment trust ILAM Fahari I-Reit in a deal of Sh402.4 million.
The family's varied portfolio, which includes businesses in the fields of manufacturing, real estate, logistics, insurance, and banking, has a number of agreements involving companies that have been acquired recently.
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Over the years, the family's strategy has been characterized by the sale of underperforming businesses and the pursuit of mergers and acquisitions in industries with strong growth prospects.
According to the most current estimates of the local subsidiary, the AIG Kenya contract will result in American Insurance Group (AIG) receiving at least Sh2 billion and giving NCBA 100% of the insurer's issued shares.
Based on NCBA's assessment of its current 33.33% ownership in the local insurance at Sh1.028 billion, the majority holding was predicted to be worth Sh2 billion at the end of December 2022.
In order to delist the fund from the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and convert it into a restricted Reit, ILAM, which oversees Fahari, has volunteered to take the lead in purchasing a total of 36.58 million units (shares).
The Ndegwas, one of Kenya's wealthiest families, recently witnessed companies in which they own a sizable share participate in some of Kenya's largest acquisitions, with values in the billions of shillings. The transactions include the purchase of further shares in NCBA Group, which was formed in 2019 by the merging of the old NIC Group with the previous CBA Group, in which they controlled a quarter of the shares.
The family's commercial engagement began in early 2015 when it sold businessman Paul Wanderi Ndung'u its agriculture and hospitality equipment firm G-North & Son Limited for an unspecified price.
Later that year, they sold the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology the ICEA Building in Nairobi's CBD for Sh1.8 billion, and the building was given the new name JKUAT Towers. Naturally, many other deals followed, culminating in what has now become the family's business acumen.