Inside Simeon Nyachae’s vast business empire
Former Finance Minister Simeon Nyachae will be remembered as an astute businessman, having left behind a vast business empire with interests in agriculture, banking, real estate, transportation and manufacturing in Kenya’s major cities including Narok, Kisii, Kericho, Sotik, Kisumu, Mombasa, Nyeri and Nairobi.
The public administration graduate from the Churchill College, Cambridge in London, United Kingdom is said to have gone into business at a very early age.
His business empire started with a bakery which he started in 1954 called Sansora Bakery at Nyanturago Market.
He then transformed the investments leveraging the Sansora Group which maintains an array of interests in flour milling, real estate, banking, coffee and aviation spread out in all major cities in Kenya.
Wealth creation requires someone who does not leave any stone unturned.
This statement is clearly reflected when Nyachae decided to start a Tea farm in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
To increase his wealth, he is said to have opted to join the ranching business. Sources indicate that Nyachae has a ranch in Australia.
Amassed a fortune
Through Sansora Group Ltd, the Nyachae family, has acquired multi-billion shilling shares in various companies in the country.
Together with President Uhuru Kenyatta’s family which owns NCBA, the late Nyachae and former Central Bank Governor Philip Ndegwa own NCBA Group, Kenya’s third-largest bank by assets.
He is one of the leading shareholders of NCBA Group with 8.6 million shares worth about Sh300 million, having held shares in the former CBA Group that later merged with NIC Group to form the Nairobi Securities Exchange listed NCBA Group.
He had 3.1 million CBA shares that converted into 8.6 million shares in NCBA which now stands at 0.57 per cent.
With Sansora Group Ltd, he also owns 21.46 per cent of the Credit Bank and several other companies including Kentainers (Kenya) Limited; First Chartered Securities Limited, and Simbi Roses Ltd which is involved in the export of flowers to Europe.
Sansora Investments Limited, also owns shares at the General Motors Limited in a Sh200m joint business venture; Associated Motors, A Jiwa Shamji-all auto associated.
Credit Bank Ltd, a venture managed by wife Grace, is a medium-sized commercial bank in Kenya.
Prior to 2010, the bank’s focus was large corporations and upscale business-people.
In September 2010, Credit Bank changed strategy and transformed into a retail bank, serving all segments of society and their businesses.
As of December 2018, the bank’s total assets were valued at approximately Sh17. 8 billion.
Nyanchae is said to have amassed a fortune from wheat farming in the Mau-Narok area in 1970s and started the Sansora Agricultural Group.
His close relations with politics never spared his businesses though, in his autobiography, Nyachae narrated a case in which the Kanu administration, planted a rat in one of his millers with the intention of closing it on health grounds.
The argument was that the factory in Nairobi had become a nuisance for pilots in an airstrip nearby by attracting hundreds of birds.
It says that the headstrong Nyachae hired a foreign expert on birds who filed a report that proved the government wrong.
