Absa Group has agreed to sell its entire stake in First Assurance Company Limited and Absa Life Assurance Kenya Limited to First Assurance Investments Limited, the same shareholder it bought the businesses from a decade ago.
The Johannesburg based lender confirmed on August 13, 2026, that it signed a sale and purchase agreement to hand over its 63.32 percent shareholding in both entities. First Assurance Investments already held a minority stake in the two firms, so the deal effectively returns full ownership to the local shareholder Absa first partnered with when it entered the Kenyan insurance market.
The transaction still needs regulatory approval, standard for a deal of this size in Kenya’s tightly supervised financial sector.
A decade after the original deal
Absa’s move closes a chapter that began in 2015, when Barclays Africa Group, as the lender was known then, paid roughly Sh2.9 billion for a 63.3 percent stake in First Assurance. The insurer traced its roots back to 1930 as the East African arm of Prudential Assurance before becoming a locally owned Kenyan company in 1991. Barclays Africa’s purchase brought it back under foreign ownership, this time as part of a pan African banking group looking to bundle insurance with lending across the continent.
The structure of the business shifted along the way. In 2019, the group transferred First Assurance’s life insurance book into a separate entity, Absa Life Assurance Kenya, leaving First Assurance to concentrate on general and medical cover. That split explains why Thursday’s announcement covers both companies rather than one.
Part of a wider retreat from insurance manufacturing
Absa sold its insurance manufacturing businesses in Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia in 2025, and the First Assurance sale extends that pattern into East Africa. Group Managing Executive for Group Communications Daniel Munslow signed off on the announcement, framing it as part of an orderly, collaborative process rather than a rushed exit.
The direction fits a broader trend among African banking groups, which increasingly prefer distributing insurance products through bancassurance partnerships over owning the underwriting risk themselves. Selling the manufacturing side while keeping the distribution relationship lets a bank collect fee income without holding capital against insurance liabilities.
What stays the same for customers
Absa says the deal will not touch how the business operates day to day. Existing distribution relationships with Absa Bank Kenya PLC will continue, meaning policies sold and serviced through the bank’s branch network face no immediate disruption. Customer products and services are not affected by the transaction, according to the statement, and First Assurance and Absa Life Assurance Kenya will keep operating under their current structures while the deal moves through regulatory review.
Absa said it will issue further updates as required once there are material developments to report.
