Billionaire investor Baloobhai Patel purchased an additional 6.59 million shares with a current market value of Sh169.9 million in the four months to December 2025, entrenching his position as the lender’s top individual shareholder.
Regulatory filings show that Mr Patel’s holdings in the bank had grown to 100 million shares in December, giving him a 1.84 percent stake. This was up from 93.48 million shares, equivalent to a 1.72 percent interest he held in August 2025.
Mr Patel, a long-term investor in Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE)-listed blue-chip stocks, accumulated Absa shares throughout most of last year.
The purchases have raised his interest in the lender substantially, with his ownership rising from December 2024, when he held 65 million shares amounting to a 1.2 percent stake.
Mr Patel was among the major investors who raised their ownership in banks last year, setting themselves up for gains in one of the best performing industries on the NSE.
Co-operative Bank of Kenya’s Chief Executive Officer Gideon Muriuki also bought an additional 5.5 million shares with a current market value of Sh148.2 million in the country's third largest bank in the seven months to December 2025, lifting his ownership to a new high of 2.3 percent.
Mr Muriuki had maintained a 2 percent interest in the bank for years until early 2025, when he embarked on a new accumulation of the lender’s shares.
The expansion of his stake has cemented his position as the top individual investor in the lender.
He is followed by Mr Patel who spent years buying Co-op Bank shares to reach 100 million units, equivalent to a 1.7 percent stake.
Mr Patel’s expanded investment in Absa comes as the lender continued to report higher dividends and earnings, which drove up its share price to a new high of Sh26.5 on January 6.
Absa posted a 14.7 percent increase in net profit to Sh16.9 billion for the nine months ended September 2025, on lower provisions for bad debts and cheaper cost of funds.
The company saw its net income rise from Sh14.7 billion a year earlier.
The lender rode on a 39.6 percent cut in provisions for bad debts and 28.5 percent drop in interest paid to customers to shield its profitability against a drop in interest income.
The bank has been increasing its dividend payout in recent years on the back of improved earnings. The lender paid a dividend of Sh1.75 per share for the year ended December 2024.
Absa maintained an interim dividend of Sh0.2 per share when it announced its results for the half year to June 2025.
Retaining the total dividend payout at Sh1.75 per share puts Mr Patel in line to earn Sh166.3 million per year based on his stake as of December 2025.
