kwft

KWFT

By Albert Bwana

KENYA WOMEN HOLDINGS TO SELL SHARES IN KWFT TO MEMBERS

Kenya Women Holding (KWH) is set to offload 25 percent of its stake in Kenya Women Micro-Finance Bank to its more than 600,000 members countrywide.  

This has been approved and is in compliance with Central Bank of Kenya’s regulation that KWH reduces its share holding in the bank to 25 per cent. Kenya Women Holding currently holds a 55 percent stake in the bank, which has an asset base of Sh23 billion and net worth Sh4 billion in equity.

“This is also in fulfillment of a promise that we made to our members in 1992 that if we work hard and grow, then they will have an opportunity to own the company,” said Dr. Jennifer Riria, the Group CEO of Kenya Women Holding.

According to Dr. Riria, the move has also been approved by the members at the Annual General Meeting held in Nairobi on Saturday and will be sold by the end of the year. However, they are yet to determine the value per share.

Kenya Women Microfinance Bank, popularly known as KWFT, was started as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kenya Women Holding. This has been reduced to 55 percent. 25 percent stake is jointly owned by Norwegian Microfinance Initiative (NMI) and Incofin of Belgium.

 The staff has a stake through the Employee Share Ownership Program (ESOP) vehicle while past directors have a small stake too.

According to Mwangi Githaiga, the Managing Director of KWFT, the bank has a presence in 45 counties and is in the process of setting shop in the remaining two – Mandera and Garissa. 

KWFT operates in rural, remote and poor urban areas and has an extensive countrywide network with 236 offices in 45 out of 47 counties. 70% of KWFT clientele are in rural areas and 25% in urban