Quickmart shares closed at KSh8.90 on their first day of trading at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) on Thursday, 18.7% above the KSh7.50 IPO price.
Investors who received shares in the offer hold KSh1.40 more value per share. The Quickmart debut pushed the supermarket chain’s market capitalisation to KSh35.60 billion, KSh5.60 billion above its KSh30 billion offer valuation.
Shares traded between KSh8 and KSh10 in the first session
The retailer trades under the ticker QMRT. Some 9.68 million shares changed hands, and prices ranged from KSh8.00 to KSh10.00. The day’s high stood 33.3% above the IPO price.
Estimated turnover reached KSh86.17 million, based on the session’s volume weighted average price.
What the Quickmart debut means for retail investors
Retail investors put in KSh2.9 billion, and 60% of them applied through Ziidi Trader. Ziidi is a mobile investment platform developed by Safaricom with the NSE and licensed broker Kestrel Capital.
Most retail applicants applied from their phones, without a broker or a branch visit. The NSE has long struggled to draw ordinary Kenyans into IPOs, which makes the figure a test of whether phone access changes who buys shares.
Kenyan and East African retail and institutional investors received their allocations in full. They accounted for 45% of the shares offered.
The KSh15 billion offer drew KSh18.41 billion in applications
The offer drew 6,068 applications for about 2.45 billion shares, which exceeded the offer by 22.7%. Sokoni Retail Kenya Limited sold 2 billion existing shares, and the proceeds go to the selling shareholders.
Four international cornerstone investors took part: the International Finance Corporation, 337 Frontier, RWC Asset Management and Mobilist. Investinvestors from Kenya and abroad filled the rest of the book.
Adenia sells part of its stake and stays invested
Adenia Partners confirmed the listing is a partial exit. Sokoni Retail Kenya, whose shareholders include Adenia, the founders and the group chief executive, keeps 50% of Quickmart, and Adenia’s funds remain invested.
Adenia first invested in Tumaini Supermarkets in 2018 and backed its 2019 merger with Quickmart, when the two chains ran 19 stores between them.
“This is a proud moment for Adenia,” said Martha Osier, partner at Adenia and a Quickmart board member. She said the listing lets Adenia “realise part of our investment” while it stays a shareholder.
Quickmart plans 125 stores by 2030 from its own cash flow
Quickmart Group CEO Peter Kang’iri told the listing ceremony that the chain will grow from 72 stores across 16 counties to 125 by 2030. Internally generated cash flow, not IPO proceeds, will fund the expansion.
Kang’iri said the company can now open 10 to 15 stores a year, against one or two in its early years. Cabinet Secretary for Investments, Trade and Industry Lee Kinyanjui attended as guest of honour.
Quickmart employs more than 8,000 people and handles about five million customer transactions a month. Management puts its share of Kenya’s formal grocery retail market at 15%. The chain pays suppliers an average of KSh5 billion a month, and more than 70% of its suppliers are small and medium enterprises, Kang’iri said.
Context: second largest supermarket chain by size
Quickmart ranks second among Kenya’s supermarket chains and reported revenue of $389 million for the 2025 financial year. Read more business and markets coverage at Khusoko.
