Safaricom awards Sh707.5 million to top bosses. Here is how the massive move was pulled off without hurting ordinary investors

Safaricom transferred 20.1 million shares valued at Sh707.5 million to qualifying employees in the financial year ended March 2026, up from 15.4 million shares a year earlier. The shares were distributed through the Employee Performance Share Award Plan, a long term incentive programme established in 2011 to reward performance and retain key employees.

Qualifying employees are selected using performance ratings achieved in earlier periods. An employee trust then buys existing Safaricom shares from the open market and holds them for three years. This waiting period is known as vesting. Employees receive full ownership of the shares at no cost after remaining with the company for three years. They are not required to meet additional performance or share price targets during that period. Because the trust purchases existing shares instead of creating new ones, the programme does not dilute shareholders. The total number of Safaricom shares in circulation remains unchanged, protecting investors percentage ownership.

Although the shares were worth Sh707.5 million when employees received them, Safaricom had not spent that amount to acquire them. The trust had bought the 20.1 million shares over time for a combined Sh350 million. Their value later increased as Safaricom’s share price rose, reaching Sh707.5 million when ownership passed to the employees. The difference of Sh357.5 million therefore came from the rise in the share price, not additional spending by the company.

Among the senior executives who benefited from the awards were chief executive Peter Ndegwa and chief finance and innovation officer Dilip Pal. Ndegwa’s Safaricom holding increased from 8.74 million to 12.09 million shares, now valued at approximately Sh425.8 million, while Pal’s stake rose from 2.22 million to 2.35 million shares, worth about Sh82.9 million.

The awards followed a strong year for Safaricom, with group net profit increasing 36.9 percent to Sh95.6 billion and the annual dividend rising 66.7 percent to Sh2 per share. Against that backdrop, the plan enables Safaricom to reward past performance, retain key employees and give them a stake in the company’s future value without diluting existing shareholders..