Quickmart PLC began trading on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) today, opening at Sh10 per share under the ticker symbol QMRT.
The retailer’s shares gained as much as 33 percent in early trade on Thursday after the listing. That is consistent with the Sh10 opening, since the offer price was set earlier at Sh7.50 per share.
The retailer announced its plans on September 23. The offer involved the sale of 2 billion existing shares by Sokoni Retail Kenya Limited, the company that owns all of Quickmart’s shares.The Capital Markets Authority approved the Sh15 billion offer, and the NSE approved admission of the company’s entire issued share capital of 4 billion ordinary shares on the Main Investment Market Segment. On those figures, Sh10 per share would value the company at about Sh40 billion.
Institutional investors took part in the offer. The UK government subscribed to roughly Sh1.94 billion in shares. Sterling Capital estimated Quickmart’s fair value at Sh6.96 per share, below the Sh7.50 offer price.
The company has been building toward this moment for two decades. Quickmart was founded in Nakuru in 2006 and merged with Tumaini Stores in 2020 under the Quickmart brand. The listing provides a partial exit for Adenia Partners, the Quickmart and Tumaini founders and CEO Peter Kang’iri, who hold their interests through Sokoni.
The debut also matters for the wider retail sector. It is the first major supermarket IPO on the NSE since Uchumi Supermarkets listed in 1992. Uchumi later collapsed, and Nakumatt and Tuskys also failed, shattering confidence in Kenya’s formal retail sector.
Quickmart says it sees the listing as a way to deepen its ties with customers and partners. Kang’iri said it would let Kenyans own a share of a business they already shop in, while raising the company’s profile with suppliers and partners. The company plans to fund its expansion largely from internally generated cash flows and to introduce a significant dividend policy after listing. The listing is also set to bring dividends back to the NSE’s commercial and services segment, giving dividend focused investors more options.
