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Gideon Muriuki owns 135 million shares in Co-operative Bank of Kenya, worth about 5 billion shillings, or roughly $38.6 million, at a recent price of 36.95 shillings.
The bank hit an all-time high of 39.95 shillings on Aug. 19, which valued the same holding at about $41.8 million.
Muriuki has run Co-op Bank since 2001 and is its largest individual shareholder. He held roughly 2% for years before he started buying again in early 2025, adding 12 million shares for 202.8 million shillings in the first five months of that year, then 5.5 million more for 148.2 million shillings in the seven months to December, which took him to 2.3%.
The stock has rewarded him. Co-op Bank opened 2026 at 23.95 shillings and has gained more than half its value since, rising about 78% over twelve months, and the company is now among the five most valuable on the Nairobi Securities Exchange with a market capitalisation above 210 billion shillings.
Dividends drove much of it. The bank declared its first interim dividend, of one shilling a share, in December 2025, and now pays three shillings a year, a yield near 8% on a stock trading at about six times earnings.
Baloobhai Patel is the second-largest individual holder with 100 million shares, or 1.7%, and stopped buying once he reached that level. Neither comes close to Co-op Holdings Co-operative Society, the body representing Kenya's co-operative movement, which owns 64.56% of the bank.
Muriuki's own position is more complicated than his shareholding. A Kenyan court blocked his arrest in August, days before he was due to enter a plea in a criminal case against him, and the prosecution is unresolved.
It arrived during the largest change at the bank in twenty-five years. The board approved a reorganisation in April that converts the listed company into a non-operating holding company called Co-opbank Group PLC, with a new wholly owned subsidiary, Co-op Bank Kenya Limited, taking over the Kenyan banking business.
Muriuki joined Co-op Bank in 1996 as a senior corporate manager and became group managing director five years later. The bank was founded in 1965 to serve Kenya's co-operative societies, listed in December 2008, and now runs more than 180 branches.
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