Quickmart's Sole Shareholder to Sell 50% Stake in NSE Listing Set for September 30

Quickmart's owner to sell half the grocery chain in NSE listing expected September 30

Quick Mart PLC, trading as Quickmart, announced on September 23, 2026 that it intends to list its shares on the Main Investment Market Segment of the Nairobi Securities Exchange. The listing will take the form of an offer for sale of 2 billion existing shares, with a nominal value of Ksh0.2 each, by Sokoni Retail Kenya Limited, Quickmart's sole shareholder, representing 50 percent of the company's issued share capital. The offer is expected to open around September 30, 2026, subject to approval from the Capital Markets Authority and the NSE.

What "offer for sale" actually means here

This point is worth spelling out because it changes what the listing does and doesn't do for Quickmart. An offer for sale means Sokoni Retail Kenya is selling shares it already owns, not shares newly created by the company. Quickmart itself will not issue any new shares and will not receive a shilling of the proceeds. The company says it plans to keep funding its store expansion the way it already does, out of cash generated by the business. Every shilling an investor pays in the offer goes to Sokoni, the selling shareholder, not into Quickmart's balance sheet.

The offer also carries an over-allotment option of up to 15 percent of the 2 billion shares on offer, roughly 300 million additional shares Sokoni could sell if demand runs high. Even if that option is fully exercised, Sokoni would still hold at least 42.5 percent of Quickmart afterward, keeping it the company's controlling shareholder.

The Main Investment Market Segment is the NSE's top listing board, reserved for larger, more established companies, as opposed to the exchange's smaller growth segment. A 50 percent stake on offer, with room to grow to nearly 58 percent if the over-allotment is exercised, is a large public float by the standards of a Kenyan listing.

Who is actually selling, and why

The press release is direct about the purpose of the sale. It describes the offer as giving "the Selling Shareholder... an opportunity to realise part of its investment following a sustained period of growth and business transformation," language the company itself uses to frame this as an exit event for Sokoni, not a funding round for Quickmart. Sokoni has held the entire company since before this announcement. Sokoni is an investment vehicle backed by the private equity firm Adenia Partners, which built the current business by combining Quickmart with rival chain Tumaini Self Service Stores around 2019.

What the release does confirm directly is enough to read the deal correctly on its own terms: this is an existing shareholder selling part of its stake, founded on the company's own words about realising an investment after a period of growth, not Quickmart raising funds to expand.

The business behind the listing

As at the date of the announcement, Quickmart operates 72 stores across 16 counties, spanning its Hypermarket, Supermarket and Express formats, and 35 of those stores run 24 hours. The store count grew from 64 at the end of 2025 to 68 by June 30, 2026, then to 72 by the announcement date, meaning the most recent four stores opened in under three months, close to one new store every three weeks.

For the year ended December 31, 2025, Quickmart generated revenue of Ksh50.4 billion and adjusted profit after tax of Ksh1.7 billion, with revenue growing at a compound annual rate of 18.4 percent between 2021 and 2025. Revenue for the first six months of 2026 alone came to Ksh27.3 billion. The company recorded about 5 million customer transactions a month on average during the first half of 2026 and counts roughly 2.5 million members in its Q-Points loyalty programme, who accounted for about 74 percent of sales across FY2025 and the first half of 2026, a level of repeat-customer concentration that's unusually high for Kenyan retail.

Quickmart puts its share of Kenya's modern grocery retail market at about 15 percent, making it the second largest chain in the country by both store count and turnover. Its stated growth strategy for 2026 through 2030 centres on opening 10 to 15 new stores a year, mostly in urban, peri-urban, regional and coastal markets, alongside a stronger online offering, delivery-platform partnerships and tighter cost control. The company is targeting more than 100 stores over the medium term, up from 72 today.

What the dividend policy would mean for investors

Following the listing, Quickmart's board intends to target a dividend payout ratio of at least 80 percent of annual profit after tax, paid twice a year, subject to the company's actual performance, capital needs and board discretion. Applied to FY2025's Ksh1.7 billion in adjusted profit after tax purely as an illustration, not a forecast, an 80 percent payout would have worked out to roughly Ksh1.36 billion split across the two payments. The company expects to pay its first post-listing dividend, covering the second half of 2026, sometime in the first half of 2027.

Group Chief Executive Officer Peter Kang'iri called the move a milestone for the business. "The proposed Listing marks an important milestone in Quickmart's journey," he said. "Over the past two decades, we have built one of Kenya's leading modern grocery retailers, serving millions of customers across 16 counties. We have steadily expanded our national footprint, strengthened our operating platform and continued to invest in our stores, our people and our technology, all while remaining focused on what our customers value most: price, convenience and freshness." Kang'iri added that listing would let Kenyans own a stake in a business they already shop in, while raising the company's profile with its suppliers and partners.

Why this listing matters beyond Quickmart

Zoom out from this one company and the recent history is what makes the timing interesting. The NSE went without a single new listing between 2020 and July 2025, when packaging firm Shri Krishana Overseas broke that drought through a listing by introduction, admitting its existing shares to trading without selling any to the public, a route that converts a private company into a publicly listed one without a share sale attached. Kenya Pipeline Company followed with a state-backed initial public offering in March 2026, and Family Bank took the same listing by introduction route as SKL in June 2026, going from a privately held bank to a publicly listed one the same way.

Quickmart, if the offer proceeds on schedule, would be the fourth new admission to the exchange in a little over a year. It would also only be the second, after Kenya Pipeline, where an investor can apply to buy shares in a public offer before trading starts. With SKL and Family Bank, there was no such window, since each company set its own introduction price going in, KES5.90 for SKL and KES18.00 for Family Bank, rather than opening it to a public subscription first. Quickmart's own offer price hasn't been disclosed yet and will instead come out of that subscription process. It would also be the first of the four in the consumer retail sector, since Shri Krishana Overseas is a packaging manufacturer, Family Bank is a lender, and Kenya Pipeline is a state enterprise.

Bottom line for investors: this is a chance to buy into an established, growing Kenyan grocery chain, not to fund its expansion, since none of the proceeds go to the company itself. The 80 percent target payout ratio is attractive on paper, but it's explicitly conditional on performance and board discretion, and Quickmart hasn't disclosed an offer price yet, so there's no way yet to judge whether the valuation matches the growth story. Investors should watch for the Information Memorandum, expected ahead of the September 30 offer opening, for the price range and full terms before deciding whether to subscribe. Track upcoming payouts across NSE counters on the dividends calendar.

Source: Quick Mart PLC press release, "Quick Mart PLC Announces Its Intention to List Its Shares on the Main Investment Market Segment of the Nairobi Securities Exchange," Nairobi, September 23, 2026. All figures on the offer structure, store network, financial performance, growth targets and dividend policy are drawn directly from this release.