The late former Attorney General has business interests in Nairobi’s Sankara Hotel and the 60,000 acre Solio Ranch in Laikipia
By GW Ngari
Editor-at-Large
@Undercover KE
Charles Njonjo, Kenya’s former Attorney General died at 5am on Sunday morning and was cremated six hours later at the Hindu Crematorium in Kariokor, Nairobi. Njonjo was a certified billionaire, a Croesus in real coin.
The broom of Njonjo’s business interests is held through holding companies which he heads in partnerships with other well-heeled tycoons. His business empire sweeps across banking, insurance, hospitality and hospitality management, ranching, large-scale agriculture, real estate, lottery, security printing, equities, private land holdings and funeral services in Lee Funeral Home-where his portrait takes pride of place at the reception.
Njonjo, fearing dying and getting preserved at City Mortuary, tapped in John Lee as business partner and lwho later face of Lee Funeral Home. The idea was spurred by the deaths of populist politician JM Kariuki and criminal lawyer SM Otieno. Both died in 1975 and 1986 respectively and their bodies taken to the City Mortuary.
But it was the burial dispute on whether SM Otieno would be buried at his farm in Upper Matasia, Ngong or in his rural Nyalgunga that sparked a seven month long court case that so troubled Njonjo he hived off the land where Lee Funeral Home stands at Nairobi Hospital when he was chair of the board!
When he was once asked about his net worth, the man without Twitter of or other social media accounts said “I am a poor man. I am worth nothing” but listed his 20 imported suits as part of his wealth portfolio.
He was just kidding.
Like majority of the rich, he was lucky to have lived a long life. Njonjo became Kenya’s Attorney General after independence in 1963. He was 43. If being at the high table of politics and its connections to lucrative business interests was the beginning of his forays into investments, then Njonjo had over 50 years ahead of him.
And time is essential in benefiting from the quadrupling effects of compound interest and other windfalls that come with value addition over time. In hospitality, he has stakes in Nairobi’s Sankara Hotel.
One of its ventures was the construction of a Sh1 billion shopping centre
Njonjo chairs the Sankara Hotel Group-which is wholly owned by Grenadier Ltd where he’s a shareholder alongside its chairman, billionaire Baloo Patel. Grenadier, in turn, owns The Grove Ltd, a property development concern. One of its ventures was the construction of a Sh1 billion shopping centre with office blocks and a hotel on seven acres in Nairobi’s Runda estate. But residents through their association lodged a court case against Grove Ltd. It was dismissed in 2017 and the development given a nod.
Grenadier’s headquarters are located at Grenadier Towers in Westlands Nairobi.
Through Gambit Holdings, Njonjo holds significant interests in listed companies at the Nairobi Securities Exchange including and automotive dealership, CMC Motors from where she resigned as chairman after four decades in 2012.
Through Africa Liaison & Consultant Services (Alico), Njonjo held stakes in Heritage Insurance AII and CfC (now Stanbic) Bank where it was one of the largest shareholders.
Njonjo topped the list of Alico owners alongside the late Jeremiah Kiereini (former head of public service), Julius Gecau (former Kenya Power CEO), and the late Asian businessman P.K. Jani the late chairman of CfC. Other shareholders included the late Ben Gethi, who served as Kenya’s police chief, former Cabinet minister Bruce McKenzie, and spymaster in the Moi government James Kanyotu.
Alico made it to the list of top CfC Stanbic Holdings owners in the wake of the 2008 merger between CfC Bank and Stanbic Bank Kenya — a subsidiary of South Africa’s Standard Bank.
The deal was concluded after Standard Bank bought CfC Bank’s top owner Gambit Holdings (with a 49.6 per cent stake) in a multi-billion-shilling transaction. But by 2014, Alico had offloaded a Sh4 billion stake in Stanbic.
Tenders including supply of Mercedes Benzes and Mercedes lorries
Njonjo was part of a group of civil servants including former President Mwai Kibaki that formed Alico as a vehicle for winning government tenders during the Africanisation programme. Alico invested in property, agriculture and shares in automotive dealerships, insurance, manufacturing and banking.
The same shareholders in Alico were almost the same ones with controlling stakes in Heri Ltd, another holding company that won government tenders including supply of Mercedes Benzes and Mercedes lorries to the government-of which the shareholders were part!
In ranching, Njonjo is associated with the 60,000 acre Solio Ranch in Laikipia, Central Kenya. The ranch named after a Maasai chief comprises 19, 000 acres of a private game sanctuary and 45, 000 acres of cattle ranch. There, livestock is bred for commercial meat consumption including lucrative state tenders. The ranch also hosts the luxury Solio Lodge.
A long running court case lodged against Njonjo by a farmer’s trading company named, Gucokaniria Kihato (bringing brooms together), claiming he fraudulently acquired Solio Ranch in 1973 using his influence and powers as Attorney General, was dismissed on appeal in 2016.
