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The Daily Savannah

Sunday, 13 September 2026 Edition Nº 18

A quiet Sunday, and the thread running through it is the same one: Kenya has KSh3.8 trillion sitting in pension funds and collective schemes, and not enough ways for it to get into — or out of — private companies.

Featured · Fintech

The NSE is building an exit ramp for investors who cannot get out

Private equity and DFI investors run on fixed horizons, but Kenya's market gives them few buyers when the clock runs out — so healthy companies sit in portfolios nobody can sell. NSE chief executive Frank Mwiti says the exchange is exploring a secondary vehicle to "act as an exit ramp for entities looking to exit their portfolios", alongside a separate proposition for family firms working through succession. The numbers behind it are not small: NSE market capitalisation recently crossed KSh4 trillion, pension funds and collective schemes hold about KSh3.8 trillion between them, and a KCB Investment Bank-led reserve targeting roughly $3 billion (about KSh388 billion) for exits is expected to be operational in Q4 2026.

Source: TechTrends KE

Traffic backed up on an overpass — Kenya's private-capital investors have few routes off the road
FINTECH

Sidian's CEO wants an MSME bond, not just more bank lending

Kenyan banks put about 25% of their loan books into MSMEs and wrote KSh326.5 billion of new MSME loans in 2025 — well past the industry's KSh150 billion target, with Equity alone accounting for over KSh90.7 billion, and a sector commitment of KSh300 billion a year through 2028. Sidian Bank's John Okulo argues the balance sheet route runs out eventually and the risk should be spread: a debt bond, possibly via FSD Africa, aggregating MSME loans into tranches pension funds can buy. "Let's find a route to float a bond that will provide patient capital for MSMEs so that this pipeline can continue," he said. Sidian has form here — a $5m African Guarantee Fund portfolio guarantee in 2021 and a KSh1.7 billion NASIRA facility in 2022.

TechTrends KE

POLICY

Kenya's REIT rules were written for buildings, not for data centres

Eleven years after ILAM Fahari listed in October 2015, the market has four established REITs plus newer instruments like the TRIFIC Green USD I-REIT, which raised about $30.82 million. Speaking at the AmCham Kenya 2026 Business Summit, Peter Waiyaki argued the framework has not kept pace: eligible real estate should be widened to cover telecom towers, fibre facilities and data centres; qualifying income should recognise licences, capacity agreements and concessions rather than rent alone; and the 25% free-float requirement should drop to 10% or 5%, which he called hard to meet for a sizeable REIT in a market where public-investor depth is thin. Worth noting given how much of this month's news has been data centres looking for capital.

TechTrends KE

KSh4TNSE market capitalisation
$3Btargeted for the KCB-led exit reserve
KSh326.5Bnew MSME bank lending in 2025
25%REIT free-float rule under challenge
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