KenolKobil, through its subsidiaries Kobil Uganda Limited and Kobil Petroleum Rwanda Limited, has acquired 23 service stations from Delta Petroleum Uganda Limited and 13 similar stations from Delta Petroleum Rwanda Limited.
In a public announcement made on Tuesday, the firm’s Board of Directors attributed the transaction; whose worth is yet to be disclosed, to the company’s network expansion strategy.
“The acquisition also reaffirms the Board’s commitment to grow the contribution of other businesses outside Kenya to the group’s bottom line,” the statement from the Board of Directors reads.
Following the inking of the deal; that has been in the works since February 2018, KenolKobil will increase its overall reach in the East African market barely three years after it exited from Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Though a few legal and regulatory approvals are yet to be concluded, the deal is expected to be finalized by March 2019.
The announcement comes just a month after French based fuel Distribution Company Rubis SCA proposed to buy the remaining shares of Kenyan oil marketer KenolKobil where it, at the time, owned a quarter of the total stocks. Rubis had offered to purchase the remaining shares at Ksh. 23 each which valued all of KenolKobil at about Ksh. 35 billion shillings.
On October 23, 2018, Rubis’ takeover of KenolKobil was further augmented after the heirs to the Late Nicholas Biwott estate, through Wells Petroleum Holdings Limited, agreed to sell their 24.99 per cent shareholding in the company to Rubis for Ksh5.6 billion.
The transaction could, however, face some headwinds after the Capital Markets Authority ordered a freeze on the accounts of some investors after it “identified potentially irregular” trading of the KenolKobil counter in the run-up to the Rubis notice.
