Equity Group founder Peter Munga bought 3.64 million shares in the bank worth Sh166.2 million in the three months to March 2025, bucking the long trend of sell downs by original owners of the lender since it was listed in 2006.
Latest shareholder filings dated March 31 show that Mr Munga now directly holds 13.21 million Equity shares valued at Sh603 million, up from 9.57 million shares in December 2024.
This has raised his stake in the bank from 0.25 percent to 0.35 percent. Earlier regulatory filings show that his ownership stake did not change throughout 2024.
Mr Munga’s volume of Equity shares had fallen from 15.42 million shares in 2018 —the year he announced he would retire as chairman of the bank after 35 years of service—to 9.57 million by the end of last year.
At the time of Equity’s listing in August 2006, Mr Munga held a 3.2 percent stake in the bank, which had started as a building society in 1984 before transitioning into a fully-fledged commercial lender in 2004.
Long term and early investors in the bank have over the years cashed in on their stakes to the tune of billions of shillings in capital gains and dividends, reflecting the bank’s growth in profitability and market share.
Others who progressively sold stakes since listing included the bank’s co-founder, the late John Kagema, and the family of the late Nelson Muguku.
Equity Chief Executive Officer James Mwangi also progressively cut his directly held stake in the lender from 5.37 percent in 2008 (at the expiry of the two-year lock in period after listing) to the present 3.39 percent.
Part of his disposal was in order to comply with regulations barring an executive director of a bank from holding more than five percent of their institution’s shares.
At listing in 2006, Equity was valued at Sh6.3 billion, but now has a valuation of Sh172.3 billion, representing a capital growth of 27 times.
The bank’s issued shares have also grown to 3.77 billion units from 90.5 million prior to listing, having incorporated a bonus issuance of 200 million shares in 2007 and a subsequent share split of 10 shares for each held in 2009.
The lender has also issued shares to employees and the investors it bought out when it was expanding to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
In the year ended December 2024, the lender reported a net profit of Sh46.5 billion, which was nearly 62 times the Sh753.3 million it made in 2006, its first year as a publicly traded company.
The lender’s performance, anchored on its retail banking business and regional expansion, has attracted major global investors to take up significant stakes, including pan African investment company Arise B.V, Dutch lenders Rabobank and FMO, Norwegian investment fund Norfund and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
For the founding investors, it has made sense over the years to cash in on the large capital gains on the stock and diversify into other investments within the stock market and in the wider economy.
This allows them to reap the benefit of the price discovery afforded to company stocks by listing on the bourse, while also bringing in new investors into the company, which improves the liquidity of the stock and spreads wealth to a wider number of people.
