East Africa’s Top Companies ’25: Slow and steady progress

Slow and steady progressAlthough East African companies remain hugely underrepresented in our Top 250 in comparison with the region’s population, they are making steady progress. The value of the East African firms listed in our table has increased from $18.3bn last year to $20.8bn for 2025, largely because of a $1.6bn rise in the value of the Kenyan companies included.

It is unclear what impact the April launch of the East Africa Securities Exchanges Association’s new stock exchange index will have on Kenya’s dominant position. The new index includes companies from Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, including Safaricom, KCB Group and Equity Group Holdings, among a host of Kenyan banks, Tanzania Breweries, Tanga Cement Company, MTN Uganda, Stanbic Uganda and MTN Rwandacell.

The index has been developed by the Kenya Bankers Association, which is also its anchor shareholder, and development agency FSD Africa, which is providing technical support. It is backed by securities exchanges across the region, including those in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia.

In February, it received regulatory approval from the Kenyan Capital Markets Authority to operate an over-the-counter securities exchange and to function as an autonomous self-regulatory organisation.

Aside from equities, it will also provide a platform for trading repurchase agreements and treasury securities. FSD Africa’s director for capital markets, Evans Osano, commented: “This is the most significant capital market infrastructure development in Kenya and the wider East African region in decades. It promises to uplift the regional fixed income markets to world class status and will be instrumental in mobilising at scale long term local currency financing for the East African economies.”

January 2025 finally saw the opening of Ethiopia’s first stock exchange in decades. Michael Habte, its chief operating officer, is confident that it will secure additional listings, noting that the long-term goal is to have around 90 listings within the first decade of operation – many likely to be state companies that list – but the ESX remains a work in progress for now.

Safaricom is the biggest company in East Africa by some distance, with a market capitalisation more than three times that of fellow telecoms operator MTN Uganda. Partly owned by the UK’s Vodafone and the Kenyan government, it raised $116m in September from the second tranche of a sustainability-linked loan from a consortium of four local banks: Absa, KCB, Standard Chartered Kenya and Stanbic. Part of the money will be used to switch its power generation from diesel to renewables in support of its sustainability programme.

MTN Uganda’s value has jumped markedly from $978m last year to $1,657m in our 2025 survey, leapfrogging Kenya’s Equity Group in the process and becoming the highest ranked Ugandan company ever in our table. Indeed, with Tanzania Breweries and NMB Bank, also of Tanzania, filling the fourth and fifth places in our regional table, Kenya is far from having it all its own way at the top of the regional table.

To view the full list of Africa’s Top 250 Companies 2025 click here.

Company focus: NMB Bank

Tanzania’s NMB has continued to grow steadily and strongly, with its value increasing from $582m in 2022 and $748m in 2023 to reach $933m last year and now $1,122m, making it the fifth-biggest listed company in East Africa and second-biggest bank in the region after Kenya’s Equity Group.

While the Tanzanian economy is far from being able to challenge Kenya in terms of GDP, its companies are becoming increasingly competitive regionally as barriers to trade and financial services are gradually reduced within the East African Community.

NMB became the first Tanzanian bank to list a bond on the London Stock Exchange. Its three-year $73m Sustainability Bond was listed on the LSE’s International Securities Market and Sustainable Bond Market platform last April. “This not only highlights NMB’s dedication to transparency and commitment to their sustainability objectives, but also showcases the continued international investor support that issuers across Africa can find in London,” CEO of the LSE Julia Hoggett said of the NMB-Jamii bond. The Tanzanian bank has also listed a $32m “Jasiri bond” on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.