French fuel storage and distribution company Rubis SCA will announce on Wednesday it’s buying Kenyan oil marketer KenolKobil Ltd, a market source in Kenya told Reuters, without disclosing the value of the deal.
Rubis will hold a press briefing at 10 am on Wednesday on “its expansion into East Africa”, according to an email sent to newsroom. A spokesman for Rubis didn’t respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
KenolKobil, worth close to $225 million by market capitalisation, also operates in Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Zambia. With a market value of about $4.7 billion, Rubis already has operations in Africa, as well as Europe, Central America and the Caribbean.
Earlier this year the Kenyan oil marketer posted a rise in 2017 profit and said it expected a better performance this year, helped by a calmer political environment in Kenya after a prolonged elections in 2017.
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However in early September, many suppliers stopped transporting fuel from depots to gas stations in Nairobi due to a strike by petroleum dealers demanding a new fuel tax be removed.
Several weeks later, President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government cut the tax on petroleum products from 16 percent to 8 percent.
The Kenyan government is struggling to boost expenditure while cutting its budget deficit.
