East Africa’s largest supermarket chain prepares to go public

Tuskys, which operates more than 60 stores in Kenya and Uganda and has overtaken the faltering Nakumatt to become the region’s largest retailer, is planning to list on the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) this year.
“We will definitely join the main market segment. Two weeks ago, we entered an incubation period with the NSE. This is the first step towards an actual listing. I expect Tuskys to be on the NSE by the third quarter of 2019,” Tuskys CEO Daniel Githua commented at a corporate event during late December 2018. This has been a long time coming – when he was appointed CEO in 2015, Githua said that his top priority was to list the retailer on the NSE within five years.
Tuskys is wholly owned by the seven children of its founder, Mzee Joram, who passed away almost 20 years ago. Ownership disputes in family businesses are not unusual in Kenya, but Tuskys is a particularly colourful case, with various family members making allegations of fraud and assault against each other and CEO Githua at one stage even escorted off the premises by irate family members (click here to see video), only to resume his duties shortly afterwards.
If you want a deeper understanding of Tuskys, Sagaci Research recently published its Tuskys Retailer Profile – providing in-depth analysis of the retailer’s development, ownership, store network, outlook, and growth and operational strategies. To learn more about this report, click here