NAIROBI: Bidco Africa, owned by Kenya’s wealthiest man, is targeting a quadrupling in sales by expanding regionally by the end of the decade to make the company a multibillion-dollar business.
The edible-oils manufacturer is considering building plants in Mozambique, Madagascar or Ethiopia by the end of the decade to add to existing operations in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda, Chief Executive Officer Vimal Shah said in an interview on April 21.
The company trades in 16 African countries outside Kenya and posted sales of $500 million last year, half of that in its home market, he said.
“We want to grow fourfold within the next five years,” Shah said at his office in Thika, 41 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of the capital, Nairobi. “We are targeting growth of $1 billion in Kenya alone within that period.”
Bidco is the biggest producer of edible oils in eastern and central Africa, and is a marketer of goods including animal feeds, hygiene products and detergents, it says on its website.
The company is tapping increasing consumer spending on the continent, which is expected to grow 6 percent annually to $1 trillion by 2020, London-based Investec Asset Management Ltd. said in a report published in August.
Kenya attained lower-middle-income status — with a per-capita gross national income of at least $1,045 — and became the fifth-largest economy in sub-Saharan Africa last year after the country’s statistics agency revised the method for calculating gross domestic product.
