Quickmart terminates founders’ major contracts ahead of IPO
Kenyan supermarket chain Quickmart has terminated lucrative contracts with its founders and related entities ahead of its planned IPO. The move is intended to improve corporate governance and reduce conflicts of interest for potential new shareholders.
Why it matters
This restructuring is a common step for private companies preparing for public listing to ensure transparency and regulatory compliance.
Supermarket chain Quickmart terminated several contracts with its founders worth hundreds of millions of shillings as it prepares to welcome a more diverse shareholder base through its ongoing initial public offering (IPO).
Termination of the contracts with the insiders is seen as improving corporate governance, including through reduction of potential conflict of interest as the company moves away from relying on a small group of owners who have backed its growth through provision of various services.
Quickmart, for instance, paid management fees of Sh208.4 million to its intermediate and ultimate parent firms Sokoni Retail Kenya Limited and Sokoni Holdings Limited in the year ended December 2025. The fees rose from Sh141.4 million the year before.
Sokoni Retail Holdings provided “strategic oversight, operational guidance, financial management structure advice, and executive support services”, the retailer says in its information memorandum published in connection with the IPO.
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