Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote has acquired a 24.76 percent stake in Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC). The Dangote KPC stake was acquired from eight State parastatals who had bought KPC shares during the company’s Initial Public Offer (IPO) in March.
“We bought 25 percent of their pipeline network for their distribution of petroleum products,” Mr Dangote was quoted by Bloomberg at an event in London, United Kingdom.
Aliko Dangote’s investment in Kenya Pipeline Company comes just a few weeks after he broke the ground for a mega USD16 billion (equivalent to around Sh2 trillion) oil refinery in Lamu County.
In this mega project, Mr Dangote is aiming to replicate Dangote Group’s refinery in Nigeria which has a capacity of 700,000 barrels-per-day.
The sellers included the National Social Security Fund (NSSF), Public Servants Pension Scheme, County Workers pension Fund, Kenya Ports Authority, Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority, and the County Workers Pension Fund. Others were pension funds for employees of Kenya Power and KPC.
The acquisition of the stake has now made Dangote the second largest shareholder at KPC. The shares were acquired within a price range of Sh9.06 per share and Sh.9.36 per share. This means that Dangote may have paid out around Sh42.5 billion to acquire the stake.
There have been concerns that when brokerage commission of around 1.5 percent is considered, the public entities that sold their stake to Dangote may have sold off at a loss, both financial and time value or either.
Since the company started trading on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) on March 9, 2026, the price of the KPC shares has remained stagnant at around Sh9 per share. This has been largely attributed to the high concentration of institutional investors on the counter. Following Dangote’s acquisition, the shares edged up by 0.44 percent to Sh9.06 with a traded volume of 867,866 as at the end of trading on October 21, 2026.
During the IPO, local institutional investors carried the heavy load by taking in a stake of 40.99 percent followed by investors from the East African region who acquired a stake of 21.22 percent.
State parastatals were compelled by the government of President William Ruto to purchase their stakes in Kenya Pipeline Company to save the IPO from being declared invalid due to low subscription.
Local investors had been allocated a pool of stocks worth Sh21.2 billion. However, they only bought shares worth Sh4.1 billion which was equivalent to taking a stake of 2.56 percent only in the IPO.
At the same time, foreign investors had been allocated Sh21.2 billion, but they only bought shares worth Sh34.8 million. This was equivalent to a stake of 0.02 percent in the IPO.
On their part, oil marketers had an allocation of stocks worth Sh15.9 billion but only bought shares worth Sh23.1 million which was equivalent to a stake of 0.01 percent.
Uganda invested between Sh20 billion and Sh30 billion into the IPO for a stake of 20 percent.
The IPO was claimed to have been overvalued with some investment firms such as Sterling Capital placing the value of the KPC shares on sale at Sh4.4 per share based on discounted cash flow model and Sh2.8 per share based on dividend discount model, and an overall fair value estimate of about Sh3.7 per share.
See More: Ruto gives Uganda power to hire, fire Kenya Pipeline CEO in deal
Had Uganda and local institutional investors pulled out, the Kenya Pipeline Company IPO would have been declared a failure. their participation, however, uplifted the IPO to an oversubscription rate of 105 percent.
For his mega refinery project in Lamu County, Dangote has offered regional governments a combined stake of 30 percent. This project is scheduled to be completed in the year 2030. Once complete, the refinery is expected to have a capacity similar to Dangote’s refinery in Nigeria.
