Ruto lures foreign investors to NSE with promise of Kenya Pipeline listing
Business
By
Macharia Kamau
| Jul 03, 2025
The government has said it will sell the Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) to private investors in the course of this year through an Initial Public Offer (IPO).
President William Ruto announced plans to privatise KPC on Wednesday during his ="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/national/article/2001523227/ruto-opens-london-stock-exchange-unveils-plan-to-sell-kenya-pipeline-through-ipo">visit to the UK<. KPC, which ensures smooth flow of petroleum products in the country and the region through its network of pipelines and storage facilities, has been termed a strategic asset and many Kenyans have in the past argued against bringing on board private sector players.
It was among the State-owned entities that have for years been earmarked for privatisation but the government has faced legal hurdles in the sale.
Speaking during a bell ringing ceremony at the London Stock Exchange, the President courted international investors, telling them that the government had made a strategic decision to broaden Kenya’s stock market by earmarking key State assets for privatisation through IPOs at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).
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“As part of this initiative, we plan to list the Kenya Pipeline Company through an IPO in 2025, offering investors a unique opportunity to deploy capital in one of Kenya’s most strategic infrastructure enterprises,” said Ruto.
“We are committed to a structured, time-sensitive programme that identifies and prepares a robust pipeline of key government assets to be privatised through the stock exchange or improved through private sector participation.”
Ruto is revisiting his ="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001516655/court-declines-to-stay-order-barring-sale-of-state-assets?utm_cmp_rs=amp-next-page">bid to sell key State firms<, in which he planned to privatise 35 parastatals in a plan to inject life into NSE that has faced a listing drought over the last decade—while at the same time offering the government an exit from State-owned entities, some of them loss-making.
Ruto had in 2022 unveiled an ambitious plan to privatise key entities, including the Kenyatta International Convention Centre, New Kenya Cooperative Creameries, Kenya Seed Company, Kenya Literature Bureau and the National Oil Corporation of Kenya.
His plans were, however, scuttled after the ="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2001486705/ruto-suffers-major-blow-as-court-halts-sale-of-parastatals"> High Court ruled In pushing for the review of the 2005 privatisation law, the government had noted that it sought to cut through a thicket of outdated regulations and give the government tighter control of its ambitious privatisation drive.
The law had, for instance, assigned the responsibility of formulating the privatisation programme to the Treasury Cabinet Secretary.
Thereafter, the programme would be submitted to and approved by Cabinet. The role of the National Assembly had been reduced to simply ratifying the programme.
The 2025 Act was said to have had numerous requirements that stifled the state’s plan to privatise some entities.
Due to these hurdles, the Privatisation Commission that was set up in 2008 has been able to only conclude a single deal involving Kenya Wine Agencies Ltd in over a decade despite having set out to privatise 26 parastatals.
At the bell ringing event yesterday, which signaled the start of trading for the day at one of the oldest stock exchanges in the world, Ruto said Kenya will keep drawing experiences from the London Stock Exchange to make the NSE more robust and vibrant.
Reforms, he added, were already in progress underpinned by strategic initiatives.
“These reforms helped NSE emerge as Africa’s top performer in dollar returns in 2024,” he said.
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