The Kenyatta family’s decision to surrender most of its stake in NCBA Group to South Africa’s Nedbank has triggered fresh political scrutiny, with lawyer Miguna Miguna suggesting that powerful families are moving wealth into safer structures as Kenya’s political order changes.
“Plundered public funds are being cleaned and stashed away so that no matter any changes we bring, the robbers will have legal cover,” Miguna wrote on X while sharing an article about the NCBA transaction.
For decades, the Kenyatta family occupied an extraordinary position in Kenya, combining vast private commercial interests with direct access to the country’s political establishment.
Jomo Kenyatta was Kenya’s founding president. His son Uhuru Kenyatta served as president between 2013 and 2022.
Commercial Bank of Africa, which later merged with NIC Group to create NCBA, was closely associated with the Kenyatta family and has been having a tax avasion case that has been in the headlines for many years.
Now, less than four years after Uhuru Kenyatta left State House, the family is giving up most of its position in one of Kenya’s largest financial institutions.
The Central Bank of Kenya announced on August 31 that it had approved Nedbank’s acquisition of up to 66 percent of NCBA Group, following regulatory approval granted on August 28. CBK said the transaction would strengthen competition and resilience within Kenya’s banking sector.
The deal transfers control of NCBA to Johannesburg based Nedbank while leaving the Kenyan lender listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
The transaction is valued at approximately $842 million and will generate substantial proceeds for the Kenyatta and Ndegwa families, the two dynasties whose banking interests were brought together when Commercial Bank of Africa and NIC Group merged in 2019.
The Kenyatta family’s holdings include 217.49 million NCBA shares held through Enke Investments, representing about 13.2 percent of the lender, while Muhoho Kenyatta holds another 12.75 million shares directly.
Under the transaction, the family agreed to sell about two thirds of that combined position.
The Kenyattas will receive approximately 4.9 million Nedbank shares valued at about KSh9.95 billion, alongside a cash component, while retaining about 73.94 million NCBA shares worth roughly KSh6.5 billion.
The Ndegwa family is similarly reducing its exposure.
Together, the two families are exchanging a large part of their direct ownership in a Kenyan bank for cash and shares in one of South Africa’s biggest financial institutions.
During Uhuru Kenyatta’s ten years in office, critics repeatedly questioned whether the family’s enormous commercial interests created unavoidable perceptions of proximity between political power and private enterprise.
The family that once had a member sitting in State House is now reducing its direct exposure to one of Kenya’s most prominent banks and converting much of that wealth into cash and shares in a South African financial group.
NCBA itself is an especially sensitive case because its growth has been closely tied to Kenya’s digital lending revolution.
The lender controls products including M Shwari and LOOP, giving it access to tens of millions of customers across the region.
The company reported KSh23.4 billion in profit before the takeover.