Is it just me or are these Batas sprouting just about everywhere? Kudos kudos.

Noticed the one on Mama Ngina St where the old Little Red used to be. Then on Kimathi St just next to the old Nakumatt Downtown. Not forgetting presence in malls like Sarit, Westgate.

Was very surprised to learn that it was founded in 1894 by a Czech who was at times heralded as the 'Henry Ford' of Eastern Europe. A guy from a cobbler family who was renonwned for his social consciousness and employee welfare.

Me I just thought the name was so Kenyan from Limuru. And that they had been going through a rough patch a while back like other cos...

Deacons had a very successful private placement in 2006 that saw them get capital for expansion to regional markets like TZ. They also opened up some outlets at the coast and were supposedly to offer an IPO back in 2008 which never materialized.

BTW Kibaki owns 12% of the company, Wahome Muchiri 7%(talk show guy also MD) among other well to do GoK insiders..

@muganda; Deacons did not come from nowhere!! It's a very old enterprise, dating back to the colonial days - used to be known as "Dodwell East Africa Cash On Nails Store" or something like that. Ownership has changed over the years and so has the strategy.

In the 70s and 80s, Deacons was a country-wide middle-income family fashion house with branches in every major town. I do recall going there from Christmas outfits as a young boy in the 70s.

They used to stock mainly Kenyan-made clothes [Yuken, His & Manhattan shirts; Raymond's suits; etc]. Bata was also in the same category - almost every mid-income child went to school in Bata Prefects

Then Moi opened the mtumba clothes floodgates and Kenya textiles cam crumbling down like dominos! Deacons [and Bata] almost collapsed due to lack of supplies and stiff [and unfair] competition from the mtush.

Both had to re-think and they came up with similar strategies - they up-scaled themselves to the upper class and started stocking goods way out of reach for the middle class. They both closed many of their branches to consolidate their positions.

Deacons went the franchise way - picking up the Woolworths brand when they pulled out [do you recall that the Nakumatt Downtown premises was a Woolworths Supermarket in the mid 80s?]

Bata scaled down their local production [almost closing down the Limuru factory] and instead relied on imported superior brands [Clarks, CART etc]

The trick worked [albeit, two-and-a-half decades later] and today they are now expanding as the economy grows and more people get into the upper income bracket [6-figure salaries - sh100k+]

As of August last year, Bata had 75 branches and they are still growing