An investment company linked to Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi and Lamu Governor Issa Timamy has agreed to pay about Sh3 billion to buy majority stakes in two insurance companies from South Africa’s Absa Group. The deal returns control of the businesses to the investors who sold them to the lender a decade ago.
People familiar with the transaction said First Assurance Investments Limited will pay Absa an estimated Sh3 billion for its 63.3 per cent stakes in Absa Life Assurance and First Assurance Kenya Limited. The price values the two insurers at about Sh4.77 billion.
Absa announced the agreement in August 2026 but did not reveal the price, and the deal is awaiting approval from the Competition Authority of Kenya. “The parties have settled on a Sh3 billion deal. They aim to conclude the transaction before the end of the financial year,” said one person familiar with the talks, who asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak on the matter.
For Mudavadi, Timamy and their partners, the deal amounts to a buyback of the shares they sold to Absa, then trading as Barclays Africa, in a Sh2.2 billion transaction in 2015. A search of the companies registry shows that First Assurance Investments is 52.5 per cent owned by Syndicate Nominees, a company Mudavadi declared as his own during his vetting for a Cabinet post in 2022.
The remaining 47.5 per cent is held by Exclusive Holding Limited, a firm associated with Governor Timamy. The business partnership later grew into a political one. Mudavadi led the Amani National Congress (ANC), with Timamy as his deputy, until the party was dissolved in 2025 to merge with the ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA).
Mudavadi holds his interest in First Assurance through two routes: via First Assurance Investments and directly through Syndicate Nominees, which owns 12.35 per cent. Together, these interests give him a 21.26 per cent stake.
Other shareholders include former First Assurance chief executive Stephen Githiga, with 4 per cent; Chandaria Ventures Limited, associated with Darshan and Neer Chandaria, with 1.67 per cent; and Epoch Investments Limited, linked to Jambojet chairman Ayisi Makatiani, along with Absa Pension Services Limited, each with 0.84 per cent.
For Absa, the sale ends its direct ownership of the two insurers as it shifts to selling insurance products through its banks, a model known as bancassurance. Under this model, the bank earns commissions on policies without tying up its own capital in insurance companies. The group has followed the same strategy elsewhere on the continent.
In 2025, its subsidiary Absa Financial Services sold Absa Life Botswana, Absa Life Zambia and its Mozambique insurance operations to Hollard International, the international arm of South Africa’s Hollard Insurance Group. “We switched to a bancassurance distribution model with key partners across our Africa regions, hence selling our insurance businesses in Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique,” Absa Group said in its 2025 annual report.
The figures in Kenya help explain the move. Absa Bank Kenya’s net profit from bancassurance rose 35 per cent to Sh1.3 billion in the year to December 2025, the highest in the country, while Absa Life’s net profit fell 26 per cent to Sh790.1 million over the same period.
At the same time, the Johannesburg-based group is increasing its ownership of its Kenyan banking subsidiary, raising its stake in Absa Bank Kenya to 85 per cent from 68.5 per cent in a Sh30.9 billion deal. In mid-August 2026, it completed the purchase of an additional 189.38 million shares, which raised its stake by 3.49 percentage points.
Absa Life, which was licensed in 2015 and was the first life insurer in Kenya to adopt bancassurance, is now the country’s seventh-largest life insurer. First Assurance Kenya is ranked 13th among general insurers. First Assurance was founded in 1930 as Prudential Assurance Company, and Kenyan investors bought it outright from its British owners in 1991.
The transaction comes amid a wave of consolidation in Kenya’s insurance industry, where ICEA Lion Group, Sanlam Allianz, Jubilee Holdings and Britam Holdings have all been involved in acquisitions, mergers and disposals in recent years.
In another buyback, First Chartered Securities has agreed to pay Sh8.5 billion to reclaim the ICEA Lion stake it sold to US financial services giant Prudential Financial for Sh2.4 billion in 2021. With insurance penetration in Kenya at about 3 per cent, investors see room for growth and steady dividends in the sector.
