SAM SENSE: KPC IPO: What are Kenyans saying?

On Wednesday, the government announced an oversubscription of the Kenya Pipeline Company shares following the much-publicised IPO.

First, the privatisation of the Kenya Pipeline has been a topic that dominated public discourse for the better part of 2025. Many questions were posed, many loaded with suspicion that particular government functionaries were intent on cutting a piece of the KPC cake.

But then the government took the sale through the required processes, getting Parliament’s nod in October 2025. By December, a transaction advisor had been found, and the sale commenced on January 19. For over a month, there were public messages put out. Private messages were also sent to CDSC account holders and commercial banks for their customers, all in a bid to have Kenyans own a piece of the Kenya Pipeline. When time was running out, a three-day extension was secured.

Let’s look at the outcome. Out of an allocation of 20 per cent, equivalent to 2.3 billion shares reserved for Kenyan individuals, only 464 million share bids were received. This translates to 3.9 per cent of total shares on offer.

Seventy thousand Kenyans are reported to have sent in their bids, an average of 6,640 shares per person. In monetary terms, individual investors invested Ksh.59,000 on average.

The performance was worse for foreign investors. Out of an allocation of 20 per cent of the sale, foreign bids accounted for only 0.03 per cent. And the cabinet secretary now blames Kenyans for the negative review and comments of the KPC IPO.

Well, we can argue on whether academic achievement grants a Kenyan more power over another in holding an opinion, but that would not be necessary.

What is certain is that the government had an elaborate machinery to market the KPC IPO, replete with millions of shillings worth of advertising across most platforms you can think of. That was complemented by an excited political class that dominates the two houses of Parliament. They spent much of their time on microphones hailing what a brilliant sale the KPC IPO was and how it was going to revolutionise the country’s infrastructure once the National Infrastructure Fund is in place to receive the proceeds of the privatisation.

At the end of it all, only 4 billion shillings’ worth of investment was put in by Kenyans. Why?

And what are Kenyans telling the government? Is it that they don’t have money? Maybe not.

And this is why. Towards the end of 2025, Safaricom Ltd issued a green bond worth Ksh.15 billion. It attracted a 276 per cent subscription, translating to Ksh.41 billion. Almost all the bids, at 96 per cent, were from retail investors, meaning individuals who put in over Ksh.39 billion at a minimum of Ksh.50,000 per investor.

That was just about six weeks before the KPC IPO opened. And now retail investors have put in only Ksh.4 billion into KPC, a paltry 10 per cent of what they did to the Safaricom bond.

That should tell us something about investor confidence. Kenyans are willing to bet with their wallets for what is clear, promising and devoid of politics.

It has been 18 years since the extremely successful IPO of Safaricom, when the Government of Kenya was selling off 10 billion shares, yielding a 532 per cent oversubscription. Now Kenya is a much-expanded economy. More people have more money and are more aware of how to invest their money.

They are more educated anyway. And so when Kenyans choose not to invest in what is the government’s, it cannot be because they didn’t study beyond the first eight years of 8-4-4. It must be a deeper conversation that any discerning government should pick. It is about people’s money, their wealth, and they will put it where they believe there is an intention to grow an economy, not the careers of proponents.