Vodacom Now Controls Safaricom: The KES 244.5 Billion Deal Is Done, But the Court Case Isn’t

On 30 June 2026, the Government of Kenya sold a 15% stake in Safaricom to Vodafone Kenya Limited in a single block trade on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. With that trade, and an internal group reshuffle completed the same day, South Africa’s Vodacom Group took majority control of Safaricom for the first time since the company listed in 2008. Vodafone Kenya now holds about 55% of Safaricom, the government’s stake falls from 35% to 20%, and public investors on the NSE keep the remaining 25%.

Safaricom confirmed the completion in a public announcement dated 30 June, signed by company secretary Linda Mesa Wambani. We already broke down the full structure of this deal when it was announced in December 2025, and we covered the court freeze that stalled it through May. This is what has now actually happened, and what is still unresolved.

What actually completed

The sale went through as a block trade, which is a large pre-arranged transaction executed in one go on the exchange rather than in small pieces on the open market. Vodafone Kenya bought 6,009,814,200 Safaricom shares, equal to 15% of the company, at KES 34 each. That values the share purchase at about KES 204.3 billion.

A day before completion, on 29 June, the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) granted Vodafone Kenya an exemption from making a mandatory takeover offer. Under Kenya’s Take-overs and Mergers Regulations of 2002, a buyer that crosses certain control thresholds normally has to offer to buy out every remaining shareholder. Vodafone Kenya crossed that threshold by taking majority control, but it never intended to buy out the public. The CMA exemption, granted under Regulation 5(1), makes that position legally binding. For ordinary Safaricom shareholders, this is the practical part: no offer is coming, nothing changes, and the share stays listed and trading on the NSE.

Who owns what now

The ownership chain is worth explaining, because the names are easy to mix up. Safaricom’s largest shareholder is Vodafone Kenya Limited, a holding company that exists to hold Safaricom shares. Before this deal, Vodafone Kenya held about 40% of Safaricom, and it was jointly owned by Vodacom (87.5%) and Vodafone Group (12.5%). Because Vodacom only owned part of the holding company, its effective look-through stake in Safaricom was about 35%.

Two things changed at once. Vodafone Kenya bought the government’s 15%, lifting its direct stake in Safaricom from 40% to 55%. Separately, Vodacom bought out Vodafone Group’s remaining 12.5% of Vodafone Kenya, so Vodacom now owns 100% of the holding company. Put together, Vodacom’s effective control of Safaricom rises from about 35% to 55%.

Nothing about this changes day to day for customers. M-PESA keeps working, phone numbers stay the same, and the government has kept the conditions it attached when the deal was announced, including a requirement that Safaricom’s chairman and chief executive must always be Kenyan citizens, plus two government board seats. We listed the full set of conditions in December.

Where the money goes

The government’s total cash take is about KES 244.5 billion. That is KES 204.3 billion from the share sale plus a KES 40.2 billion upfront payment. The upfront payment is an advance on future dividends. Instead of collecting yearly dividends on its remaining 20% stake, the government took a lump sum now, financed by Vodacom against those future payouts. One consequence is that the state is not expected to receive Safaricom dividends on that 20% for roughly the next two to three years, while the arrangement is repaid.

A separate figure floating around is KES 272 billion, or about $2.1 billion. That is the value of the two equity purchases combined: the KES 204.3 billion for the government’s 15% and KES 68.1 billion for Vodafone Group’s 5% leg. The KES 68.1 billion goes to Vodafone Group, not to the Kenyan Treasury, which is why the government’s own inflow is the smaller KES 244.5 billion. Both numbers are correct. They just measure different things.

The government plans to channel its proceeds into a National Infrastructure Fund and a Sovereign Wealth Fund, both set up to pay for roads, energy, water and airports without new taxes or borrowing. Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has framed the sale as crystallising value from a 25-year-old state investment. Safaricom is the first big move in a wider privatisation plan we’ve been tracking since 2025, with a Kenya Pipeline Company IPO lined up next.

The court fight that isn’t over

The deal closed while a constitutional challenge to it is still live. This is the part that carries ongoing risk.

The transaction had been frozen since March 2026, when the High Court issued conservatory orders. A conservatory order is a temporary court order that holds things in place until a case is decided. On 26 June, the Court of Appeal lifted that freeze, ruling that the government’s appeal raised arguable issues and that the public interest favoured letting the sale proceed. The appeal judges were explicit that they were not ruling on whether the sale is lawful. That question sits with the High Court, which heard the substantive petition on 29 June and has not yet ruled.

The petitioners, who include Tony Gachoka, Professor Fredrick Ogola and, in a separate challenge, opposition leader Kalonzo Musyoka, make three main arguments. First, that KES 34 a share undervalues Safaricom, with their own estimates of fair value between KES 70 and KES 80. Second, that the process skipped meaningful public participation and the transparency the Constitution requires for disposing of public assets. Third, that handing majority control of the company that runs M-PESA and hosts sensitive systems like e-Citizen to a foreign-controlled entity creates a national security and data sovereignty risk. We set out these arguments in full when the freeze was in place.

Musyoka has said the lifting of the freeze is “not a green light” and that any deal closed before the case is decided was “concluded at risk”. Safaricom and the Treasury counter that the shares are publicly traded and traceable, so the transaction could in principle be reversed if the petitioners win. Whether unwinding a completed, billion-dollar block trade is realistic in practice is a separate question, and one the courts have not had to answer yet.

Why Vodacom wanted control

For Vodacom, majority control changes how Safaricom appears in its accounts. Until now it recorded Safaricom as an associate, booking only its share of the profit. With control, it will consolidate Safaricom fully, adding all of Safaricom’s revenue and earnings line by line. Safaricom reported EBITDA of R29 billion in its last financial year, against Vodacom’s R63 billion, so consolidation materially enlarges Vodacom’s reported numbers. It also deepens Vodacom’s exposure to M-PESA and to Safaricom’s expansion in Ethiopia, where losses are starting to narrow.

What to watch next

Three things are worth following. The High Court’s ruling on the constitutional petition is the one that could still change the picture. Vodacom is due to update the market on its medium-term targets around 27 July, alongside first-quarter results that should show how it plans to fold Safaricom in. And the Kenya Pipeline IPO will test whether the government can repeat this privatisation model on a company without Safaricom’s profile.

The transaction is legally complete and Vodacom now controls Safaricom. What is not settled is whether the sale itself was constitutional, and the High Court’s answer to that is the outstanding piece that could still force a change. For anyone using M-PESA or holding Safaricom shares, nothing changes today.