Narendra Raval, the founder and chairman of Devki Group, is the richest person in Kenya as of November 2026, with a fortune we estimate at about $760 million. This list ranks Kenyan business founders and builders by the wealth their own companies created. Fortunes that came mainly through marriage, inheritance or a public office are covered in the special mentions instead.
Kenya has no dollar billionaires in 2026, and the number of Kenyans worth $1 million or more fell by about 4% this year, to roughly 6,500. Most big Kenyan fortunes sit inside private family companies that publish nothing, so estimates for the same person can differ tenfold. Where a stake is listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange we used its market value at the close on 10 November 2026. Everywhere else we built our own figure from the best numbers we could find and say how rough it is.
| Rank | Name | Net worth (USD) | Main source of wealth |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | S.K. Macharia | $25 million | Royal Media Services |
| 9 | Kimani Rugendo | $28 million | Kevian Kenya (juices) |
| 8 | Adil Popat | $30 million | Simba Corporation (cars, hotels) |
| 7 | John Kibunga Kimani | $32 million | Listed shares (Kakuzi, Centum) |
| 6 | Bharat Shah | $40 million | Kenafric Industries |
| 5 | Baloobhai Patel | $95 million | Carbacid, listed bank shares |
| 4 | James Mwangi | $103 million | Equity Group |
| 3 | Suresh Bhagwanji Shah | $120 million | I&M Group |
| 2 | Bhimji Depar Shah and family | $390 million | Bidco Africa |
| 1 | Narendra Raval | $760 million | Devki Group (steel, cement) |
The ranking: number 10 to number 1
10. S.K. Macharia: $25 million
Samuel Kamau Macharia was a businessman for decades before he moved into broadcasting. He built Royal Media Services into the largest private broadcaster in East Africa, home of Citizen TV, Radio Citizen and a string of local-language stations.
The secret was reach. While rivals chased Nairobi listeners in English, Royal Media went to the countryside in the languages people speak at home, and advertisers followed. Citizen TV has been the most watched channel in the country for years.
Published estimates for Macharia range from $25 million to more than $300 million, which shows how little is known about the finances of a private broadcaster. We take the low end, because advertising revenue across Kenyan media has shrunk as budgets move to phones and social platforms.
9. Kimani Rugendo: $28 million
Few Kenyans know the name, but most have drunk his juice. Kimani Rugendo is the founder of Kevian Kenya, the company behind Pick N Peel and Afia juices, drinks sold in supermarkets and kiosks across East Africa.
Kevian grew by doing what multinationals found hard: buying fruit from small farmers, processing it locally and pricing bottles for people who count their shillings. It has since added factories and exports to neighbouring countries.
The company is private and does not publish accounts. Our $28 million is a valuation of Kevian at a modest multiple of estimated sales, in line with the single published figure for him, and hedged accordingly.
8. Adil Popat: $30 million
Simba Corporation began in 1948 as a used-car dealership in Nairobi, started by Abdul Karim Popat. His son Adil Popat took over the running of the business and turned a car lot into a diversified group, now one of Kenya’s best-known motor dealers with interests in hotels and property.
The hotel side is the part most Kenyans have seen. Simba’s hospitality arm is behind the Villa Rosa Kempinski in Nairobi and the Olare Mara Kempinski in the Maasai Mara, which brought international luxury brands to a group that started out selling second-hand cars.
Simba is private and publishes no accounts. Our $30 million follows the one published estimate for him, which already discounts private assets for country risk and unknown debt, so treat it as a careful guess.
7. John Kibunga Kimani: $32 million
John Kibunga Kimani is one of the biggest private investors on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, and one of the least known. Before his name appeared in shareholder registers, he worked on farming and irrigation programmes in the Tana and Athi river basins.
His largest holding is Kakuzi, the listed grower of avocados, macadamia nuts and tea, where he owns about 34.5%, or roughly 6.8 million shares. He has also been buying Centum Investment for years: his stake reached 11.51% in the year to March 2026, up from about 1% five years earlier.
At the closing prices of 10 November 2026, the Kakuzi stake is worth about Sh2.9 billion and the Centum stake about Sh1.3 billion, roughly $32 million together. Smaller holdings in Nation Media Group and Safaricom are not counted.
6. Bharat Shah: $40 million
Kenafric Industries started as a sweets maker in Nairobi and became one of the biggest confectionery companies in the region, the maker of Fresh chewing gum and OYO seasoning. Bharat Shah shares the family business with his three brothers. Its toffees, lollipops and gum sit next to the till in shops across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, and the family has added shoes, biscuits and stationery over the years.
Sweets look like a small business until you count the volumes. A shilling-sized product sold millions of times a week throws off a steady stream of cash, and Kenafric has used that money to build factories and distribution networks rather than chase glamour.
The best price tag comes from outside investors. Two private equity firms own 40% of the confectionery and seasoning business, and in early 2025 they were reported to be selling stakes worth more than $100 million. That values the whole unit at $250 million or more and the family’s 60% at about $150 million. Bharat’s quarter is about $37.5 million, and his share of the rest of the family’s businesses takes him to about $40 million.
5. Baloobhai Patel: $95 million
Baloobhai Patel‘s biggest asset is a company that sells gas pulled from the ground. Carbacid Investments, in which he owns about half through his holding company, mines natural carbon dioxide from wells near Nairobi and sells it to brewers and soft drink bottlers across East Africa. It has been one of the steadiest dividend payers on the Nairobi bourse for years.
Patel also owns about 100 million shares each in Co-operative Bank and Absa Bank Kenya, a small stake in CIC Insurance and the tour operator Transworld Safaris. He is one of the few Kenyan investors whose wealth sits mostly in listed shares anyone can look up.
At the 10 November 2026 close, his Carbacid shares were worth about $42 million, the Co-op Bank shares about $28 million and the Absa shares about $23 million. Add about $2 million for his smaller holdings and he lands at $95 million, well up on earlier estimates because Carbacid and Kenyan bank shares have rallied hard in 2026.
4. James Mwangi: $103 million
When James Mwangi joined Equity Building Society in 1992, it was close to collapse, with more bad loans than deposits. He turned it into a bank for people other banks ignored: small traders and farmers with a few hundred shillings to save. Equity Bank listed on the Nairobi exchange in 2006, and today Equity Group has more customers than any other bank in East Africa, with subsidiaries in six countries.
Mwangi has led the group for more than two decades and built up his shareholding along the way, to about 127.8 million shares, or 3.39% of the group.
Equity’s shares have risen by about half since late January 2026, and at Sh99.25 on 10 November his stake was worth about $98 million. Add the Sh735 million dividend he received this year and he reaches about $103 million. He also owns shares in insurer Britam, which we leave out.
3. Suresh Bhagwanji Shah: $120 million
I&M started life in 1974 as a small Nairobi lender called Investments & Mortgages. Suresh Bhagwanji Shah was among its founding shareholders and still owns about 174.9 million shares directly, roughly 10% of what is now I&M Group, a bank with branches in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Mauritius.
I&M kept a reputation as a conservative, family-style bank for business owners, which helped it come through the Kenyan bank failures of the 2010s with its balance sheet intact.
I&M’s share price has nearly doubled in 2026. At Sh84.50 on 10 November, his direct stake was worth about $114 million, and the Sh656 million dividend he received in May adds about $5 million. That gives $120 million. Shares held through family holding companies are not counted, because their owners are not published.
2. Bhimji Depar Shah and family: $390 million
Bhimji Depar Shah started the business that became Bidco in 1970, first making clothes and later cooking oil. His son Vimal Shah, now chairman, and other family members turned it into Bidco Africa, the largest maker of edible oils and fats in East and Central Africa. The group sells more than 60 brands in about 18 countries, from cooking fat to detergents.
Bidco keeps buying and building. It has bought breakfast cereal and snack maker Groupaco, and it is spending about Sh20 billion on four new factories at an industrial park near Tatu City, outside Nairobi. In 2025 it held talks about a partnership with an Egyptian food group to expand further across the region.
The Shahs own Bidco privately, so nobody outside the family knows its exact value. The last sales figure the company gave was more than $500 million a year. Valued at the same ratio of market value to sales as PZ Cussons, a listed maker of soaps and personal care brands, that comes to about $390 million for the family. We add nothing for growth since, because no newer figure has been published.
1. Narendra Raval: $760 million
Narendra Raval is known in Kenya as “Guru”. He arrived from Gujarat in 1978 as a teenage temple assistant, worked in a steel mill and, with his wife, opened a hardware shop in Nairobi’s Gikomba Market in 1990. About two years later he began rolling steel in Athi River. That business became the Devki Group.
Devki now makes steel, cement, roofing sheets and packaging, with plants in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, revenue above $1 billion and about 14,000 staff. It bought 51% of Rwanda’s Cimerwa cement for $42.5 million in 2024, opened an Sh11 billion steel plant in Taita Taveta in December 2025 and is building an Sh45 billion clinker plant in West Pokot.
Devki is private and publishes no profit, so this figure is rough. We value the group at about 0.97 times its revenue, the average of what Devki paid for Cimerwa and the stock market value of Tata Steel against its sales, then take off $215 million for borrowing we assume went into the two new plants. We credit the whole group to him as founder and chairman. That gives about $760 million, inside a range of $400 million to $1.1 billion. Older estimates are lower because they predate the Rwanda deal, the new plants and revenue passing $1 billion.
Special mentions
- Manu Chandaria: The industrialist behind the Comcraft Group, which makes steel, aluminium and plastics in dozens of countries. Comcraft is owned across a large extended family, and estimates of his personal share range from $30 million to $1 billion, too wide for us to rank him.
- Mama Ngina Kenyatta and family: The Kenyatta family’s holdings include Brookside Dairy, about 13% of NCBA Group, hotels and large tracts of land. The listed NCBA stake alone was worth about $160 million in early 2026, but the wealth is a family fortune built over two generations.
- Zarin Merali: She took over the Sameer Group holdings built by her husband, Naushad Merali, including control of Sameer Africa and a stake in NCBA. We estimate the family’s assets at about $220 million.
- The Ndegwa family: Heirs of Philip Ndegwa own about 15% of NCBA Group, a stake worth about $180 million in early 2026, the largest single listed holding in the country.
What Kenya’s richest people have in common
Look down the list and you see factories, not apps. Steel, cement, cooking oil, sweets and juice: Kenya’s biggest self-made fortunes come from making cheap things that millions of people buy every day. The two at the top have one more thing in common: both run private industrial groups founded by families of Indian descent and still controlled by them today.
Banking is the other route. Two of the ten built their wealth inside a bank, two more hold baskets of listed shares, and the biggest inherited fortunes in Kenya sit in NCBA. Tech, despite the hype around Nairobi’s startup scene, has yet to put a founder on this list.
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Who is the richest person in Kenya in 2026?
Narendra Raval, the founder of Devki Group, is the richest in Kenya with an estimated $760 million. His wealth comes from steel and cement plants in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.
Are there any billionaires in Kenya?
No Kenyan is a dollar billionaire in 2026. Some estimates put a few families above $1 billion, but none of those figures can be backed by recent valuations.
Who is the richest Black Kenyan businessman?
On our list it is James Mwangi of Equity Group, with about $103 million, almost all of it in Equity shares.
How much does number 10 on the list have?
S.K. Macharia, the founder of Royal Media Services, is tenth with an estimated $25 million.
Why are Kenyan net worth figures so different from site to site?
Most large Kenyan businesses are private and do not publish accounts, so writers guess. We used listed share values at November 2026 prices where we could and built our own valuations for private companies.
How many millionaires live in Kenya?
About 6,500 Kenyans were worth $1 million or more in mid-2026, down roughly 300 from a year earlier.
How we estimate net worth
Our estimates are based on public reporting, company valuations, and deal and earnings figures all compiled in an internal valuation model. They are approximate, and figures change over time as new information emerges.
Keep reading
- “Boring” businesses that can make you a millionaire
- The industries that make the most millionaires
- Places where it is easiest to get rich
Last updated: November 2026.
