mwashao
New Lister
It is worth noting that for the uninitiated, Rubis appears to be a new company that has quickly become one of the largest if not the largest oil marketer/petrol station chain in the country.After all, it has only been in the country for a little under three years. Those who don’t read the pink business newspapers may however have missed the story, and thus attribute this rapid rise to the top of Kenya’s retail petroleum industry to some kind of ‘dynasty’ money. The truth however is that Rubis is a 30+ year old French company, founded all the way back in 1990. In 2019, the company entered the Kenyan market by acquiring 100% of KenolKobil for $353 million (about Ksh36 billion then). According to the Competition Authority of Kenya, this was paid in cash, not stock, meaning the Kenyan owners of KenolKobil got no shares in Rubis Energy.

Rubis was however not done shopping. In late 2019, they completed the acquisition of Gulf Energy for €129 million (Sh16.4 billion). In total, the company spent just over Ksh55 billion to enter the Kenyan market, gaining control of 190 KenolKobil petrol stations and 46 Gulf Energy petrol stations, as well as all their fuel depots, LPG storage, filling plants etc. In the process, Rubis became the largest petroleum company in Kenya by market share, leapfrogging both Total and Vivo Energy (Shell). Further, the company committed Sh2.4 billion to rebrand all these stations to ‘Rubis’ by end of 2022. For most Kenyans, this has been the most visible part of the transaction. Since we have established the premise in which Rubis has taken over Kenyan highways in a such a short period of time, who really owns the company. Good thing it is a publicly traded company in France, with a public list of its shareholders. The major shareholders are all French entities. However, the vast majority of shares (85.74%) are free float, traded on France’s stock market – EURONEXT PARIS
Rubis own financial statements state that they own and control 100% of the Kenyan operation. So, unless some Kenyans have bought Rubis shares on the Paris Stock Exchange, we don’t believe that’s the case.
