Liberty Kenya Holdings will distribute the entire proceeds from the sale of its short-term insurance unit in Tanzania to shareholders, the insurer said.
Group Chief Executive Officer Kieran Godden said that the Sh0.60 per share special dividend payout to shareholders in its register as of June 14, represents the net earnings from the disposal of the firm’s 60 percent stake in Heritage Insurance Company Tanzania.
The payouts will amount to about Sh321.42 million, given the firm’s nearly 535.71 issued shares.
“That amount of money is the net proceeds [from the sale]. We have returned it to the shareholders which is good because they need cash in their pockets,” Mr Godden told the Business Daily.
“When money is invested in business, it generates a return and if you don’t need the cash for something, you give it back to shareholders. We will really try and pay dividends in the month of June.”
The stake in the Tanzanian business, which offers general insurance, has been sold to an undisclosed investor.
Mac Group Tanzania Ltd — an investment company with interests in shipping, real estate, manufacturing — controlled the remainder 40 percent stake in Heritage Insurance Company Tanzania before the sale.
Liberty maintains that the sale of the Tanzanian business was informed by the need to “focus on our core market in Kenya”.
“We have by far the biggest business sitting in Kenya. We were making a little bit of money from Tanzania, but we felt it was better for us to focus on our Kenyan businesses, and really to grow our Kenyan businesses aggressively,” Mr Godden said.
“From Nairobi, we are also able to offer our customers a regional approach through partners, which we felt was a better way of doing it without having the shareholding.”
The sale of the Tanzanian unit leaves Liberty Kenya with Liberty Life Assurance Kenya Ltd, Heritage Insurance Company Kenya Ltd and CFC Investment Ltd. Liberty owns 100 percent shareholdings in the three firms.
Heritage Tanzania was established in the aftermath of Tanzania's liberalisation of its short-term insurance market in 1998, opening the way for Kenya's insurers such as Britam, ICEA Lion, and UAP to open shops in the neighbouring country.
The Tanzanian insurer unit had an asset value of Sh5.33 billion and a liability of Sh4.48 billion attached to it at the end of December 2024, giving it a book value of about Sh850 million.
Liberty marked did not disclose earnings for the Tanzanian business in 2024, marking it as “discontinued operations”.
The Group booked Sh1.37 billion in net profit in 2024, more than double Sh631 million in the prior year.
The earnings were boosted by net investment income which rose 3.3 times to Sh4.74 billion from Sh1.4 billion, prompting the firm to offer shareholders another special dividend of Sh0.50 per share, or Sh267.85 million, “on account of the exceptional financial performance”.
Liberty's insurance service result—which is premiums received less claims payment and expenses incurred— rose 5.6 percent to Sh1 billion.
