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The current talk in town is about KenolKobil owners selling out to Puma Energy. Why are the main shareholders selling what appears to be a very profitable business?
Of course, only the owners can explain this better. However, since the “real owners” are not publicly known, or directly accessible to explain, I will hazard an informed guess as to why the owners maybe selling....
Hurriedly merged
The not very obvious process of offloading ownership of KenolKobil appears to have started playing out in 2008.
This is the year when Kobil “relocated” from its registered domicile in the State of Delaware in USA and registered in Kenya.
Kobil was then hurriedly merged with Kenol and shares of the joint company KenolKobil offered to Kenyans in the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).
This, according to me, was the first step of offloading ownership. This was immediately followed by a flurry of media activity to promote the value of KenolKobil. This was accompanied by accelerated and over-publicised regional asset acquisitions which further increased perceived strategic value of the company at the NSE.
All this was happening as the political clout that KenolKobil apparently relied on for many years was evidently fast waning due to changed political landscape.
This was also when multi-billion shilling court cases between KenolKobil and government oil companies were in high gear. Some of these cases are yet to be concluded.
The Energy ministry was also playing no-nonsense with KenolKobil. The familiar playing field was fast shifting and business environment was becoming more uncertain for the company.
People familiar with the history of KenolKobil’s rapid emergence and growth in the 1980s will mostly agree with me that it was surrounded with suspicions.
They will also likely agree that this may be the opportune time for the owners to fully offload the company’s history to new foreign owners.
All said and done KenolKobil stands out as a first-class marketer. They have managed to turn out good profits in an environment where its peers are complaining of a market skewed by price controls.
It has correctly pursued opportunities and aggressively gone for a sizeable and profitable market share.