Former AG William Byaruhanga Acquires Billion-Shilling Stake in Kenya’s Sidian Bank Former Ugandan Attorney-General William Byaruhanga has stepped into Kenya’s financial sector with a Sh1.03 billion investment in Sidian Bank, taking up a 14.63% stake. His move comes as the bank posts record profits and rising deposits, even as the Central Bank of Kenya flags its thin capital buffers and possible need for fresh shareholder funding.

Former Ugandan Attorney General William Byaruhanga has extended his footprint beyond Kampala’s legal and real estate corridors into Nairobi’s financial sector, in a billion-shilling bet that reshapes the ownership of Sidian Bank, a news report by Business Daily shows.

Through his investment vehicle, Kenbe Investments, Byaruhanga acquired a 14.63 percent stake in the lender for KSh 1.03 billion (UGX 28 billion), buying out part of Centum Investment’s holding in Bakki Holdings Company, which previously owned 40 percent of Sidian.

The deal positions Byaruhanga as the bank’s fourth-largest shareholder and cements his growing reputation as a regional business player.

Centum’s decision to divest its Sidian stake has been anything but sudden. The Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed investment giant once controlled 83.4 percent of the bank and had, in early 2023, struck a Sh4.3 billion deal to sell the lot to Nigeria’s Access Bank.

When the transaction fell through, Centum pivoted to a staggered disposal strategy, parceling off chunks of ownership to a mix of Kenyan and regional investors.

It offloaded 43 percent to entities including Wizpro Enterprises, Afram Limited, Pioneer General Insurance, Pioneer Life Investments and Telesec Africa for Sh3.2 billion.

The sale to Byaruhanga’s Kenbe Investments followed, effectively reducing Centum’s presence in Sidian to 27.27 percent after dilution from rights issues, down from the original 40 percent under Bakki Holdings.

The rights issues have proven pivotal. While other investors injected over Sh3 billion into Sidian across three capital calls in 18 months, Centum and Byaruhanga opted to sit them out.

The result has been a reshuffling of influence within Sidian’s boardroom. Wizpro Enterprises, tied to Kenya Tea Development Agency chair Solomon Muriithi Maina, increased its holding from 18.27 percent to 24.95 percent, while Afram Limited saw its stake rise to 24.3 percent from 7.91 percent.

Conversely, Pioneer General Insurance and its sister company Pioneer Life Investments trimmed their ownership to 16.89 percent and 3.06 percent respectively. Telesec Africa also scaled down to 3.47 percent, after earlier changes in its control.

The outcome has been a bank increasingly concentrated in the hands of larger institutional investors, shifting away from its earlier patchwork of nine individual shareholders.

Byaruhanga’s move is emblematic of his calculated expansion beyond Uganda’s borders. Known for his ties to President Yoweri Museveni and his sprawling domestic holdings in real estate, hospitality, agribusiness, and law, the former attorney-general has steadily been transforming into a regional financier.

His stake in Sidian represents not just portfolio diversification, but a strategic alignment with one of Kenya’s fastest-growing banks. Kenbe Investments is structured with Byaruhanga holding 90 percent and his wife 10 percent, giving her an indirect 1.4 percent slice of Sidian’s equity.

Yet the lawyer’s decision not to participate in Sidian’s rights issues may reflect a cautious entry strategy.

Byaruhanga appears to have preferred to anchor himself with a significant but not overextended stake, leaving room to watch how the lender manages its growth and regulatory challenges before committing further capital.

That caution is warranted, for Sidian has become both a star performer and a point of concern.

The bank’s half-year net profit surged 4.5 times to Sh1 billion in June 2025, up from Sh221 million a year earlier.

Much of that growth has come from its heavy investment in government securities, which ballooned threefold to Sh39.3 billion over 12 months.

Deposits grew nearly 71 percent to Sh59.8 billion, with lending up a modest 4.8 percent to Sh26.9 billion.

The strategy of placing the bulk of its deposit growth into Treasury bills and bonds has proven lucrative, with earnings from government paper more than doubling to Sh1.8 billion.

But Sidian’s impressive growth has come under scrutiny from the Central Bank of Kenya.

In a stress test conducted in May, the CBK flagged the bank’s capital adequacy ratios as worryingly thin, warning that retained profits would be insufficient to absorb shocks if provisioning requirements were enforced in full.

Sidian, along with Bank of Africa, remains below regulatory requirements on core capital adequacy, making it vulnerable despite its profitability surge.

That reality means shareholders are likely to face yet another cash call to shore up capital, testing the appetite of new investors like Byaruhanga to match their stakes with fresh equity.

The shifting ownership of Sidian tells a larger story of Kenyan banking.

Once a small-tier lender with diffuse individual ownership, the bank is consolidating under fewer, better-capitalized investors.

Centum’s retreat is as much about portfolio rationalisation as it is about Sidian’s future.

By stepping back, Centum has freed capital for higher-yield ventures, while paving the way for players like Byaruhanga to assert regional influence.

For the Ugandan lawyer, the Sidian deal is not just a financial play but a symbolic one. It marks the arrival of Ugandan capital in Kenya’s banking boardrooms, a statement of cross-border ambition from an investor who has carefully transitioned from legal power to business prominence.

Sidian’s trajectory, balancing rapid expansion with regulatory fragility, will test his long-term commitment.

But for now, Byaruhanga has positioned himself at the heart of a bank that is rewriting the script on growth in Kenya’s financial sector.