Corporate News
Kevian Kenya proprietor Kimani Rugendo. Courtesy photo
By MUGAMBI MUTEGI
In Summary
- Kevian began production in 1995 – at around the same time Mr Rugendo was the Ford Asili Nairobi chairman – with a capital injection of Sh25 million in savings and contributions from his friends.
- Mr Kinuthia last year made a fortune after spinning off a section of his company and selling it to global cosmetics giant L’Oreal in a deal estimated to have been worth more than Sh1.5 billion.
Kimani Rugendo is probably better known for his
political pursuits than his business acumen. But beneath the veil of a
post-independent Kenya political activist is an astute businessman whose
latest moves have seen him stake a claim to a place at the high table
of Kenya’s industrialists.
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“I now consider myself to be an industrial leader. It is my
wish that when I am gone, the country will have at least 55 per cent of
all businesses being Kenyan-owned through entrepreneurship,” said Mr
Rugendo in an interview with the Business Daily.
Now in his 60s, Mr Rugendo has set politics aside
and is channelling his energies to building a soft drinks empire through
his Kevian Kenya Limited, the manufacturer of Afia and Peek ‘N’ Peel
juice brands.
Kevian began production in 1995 – at around the
same time Mr Rugendo was the Ford Asili Nairobi chairman – with a
capital injection of Sh25 million in savings and contributions from his
friends.
“The journey has been rough but enjoyable. When I
started out, the perception was that locals, unlike foreigners, did not
have what it takes to build successful businesses,” said Mr Rugendo.
The company, whose value is now in billions of
shillings, has grown into a formidable competitor of international
brands like Coca-Cola and Del Monte.
The businessman has recently injected Sh3 billion
into the upgrading of the company’s Thika and Nairobi factories. The
upgrade is part of the firm’s diversification into production of
non-alcoholic malt drinks that will see Kevian enter the turf of
Coca-Cola and East African Breweries Limited (EABL).
This puts Mr Rugendo at par with successful
self-made Kenyan industrialists like Tabitha Karanja of Keroche
Breweries, Paul Kinuthia of Interconsumer Products Limited and
billionaire businessman Chris Kirubi. Other individuals who have built
industrial conglomerates are Vimal Shah (Bidco Refineries chief
executive) and Manu Chandaria, the chairman of Comcraft Group, both
family-owned businesses.
Mr Rugendo’s first stab at commerce was in the
early 1980s when he started Sterling Craft Limited, a manufacturer of
industrial equipment and military regalia. The company is still in
existence supplying berets, medallions, ceremonial swords, medals and
other symbols of office to the Kenya Police and Kenya Defence Forces
among others.
Sterling Craft also supplies milking machines,
pipes and fittings as well as generators. In the early 1990s, Mr Rugendo
also operated Jeans Bar in Nairobi West, a business he said he started
as a “hobby” and which he later exited.
Kevian Limited started production in 1995 as one of
the country’s first manufacturers of bottled water under the brand name
Mt Kenyan. “I started out producing mineral water and the company
really struggled in the formative years,” Mr Rugendo said.
The water was mainly sold to Mombasa tourist hotels and some of it to Nairobi supermarkets and restaurants.
The water company then diversified to producing
Pick ‘N’ Peel ready to drink juices, and later on, Afia. Both drinks
are sold as far as Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sudan and Zambia. When Mr
Rugendo’s business finally picked up, even local banks which had in the
past shunned him lined up to bankroll his ventures.
Equity Bank,
IDB Capital Limited (formerly Industrial Development Bank) and National
Bank of Kenya are some of the local lenders that are listed as having
given financial backing to the businessman over the years.
His main source of funding however, – including the
latest Sh3 billion injection for the factory upgrade -- has come from
international lender DEG, a subsidiary of German government-owned KfW.
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