Standard Chartered Bank Kenya is pressing ahead with plans to sell five properties pledged as security for loans advanced to collapsed retailer Nakumatt Holdings. The lender wants to recover more than KSh967 million and US$7.3 million in unpaid facilities, a combined exposure above KSh1.9 billion at current exchange rates.
The bank has issued statutory notices to Creative Enterprises Limited and Nakumatt Investments Limited, the two companies that charged the properties as security for Nakumatt Holdings’ borrowing. Together, the notices mark a new stage in a recovery effort that has dragged on since the retailer’s collapse in 2017.
What Nakumatt Owes and What Is at Stake
As of June 2026, the outstanding balances stood at:
| Facility | Amount Owed | Borrower/Security Provider |
|---|---|---|
| Overdraft facility | US$335,525.83 | Nakumatt Holdings |
| Term loan | US$6,993,052.49 | Nakumatt Holdings |
| Import invoice finance | KSh967,173,402.60 | Nakumatt Holdings |
The five properties earmarked for sale include a parcel of land in Nairobi charged by Creative Enterprises, plus four properties charged by Nakumatt Investments: a parcel in Mombasa, a block in Nakuru Municipality, and two further parcels in Nairobi.
Years of Delay Before the Notices Landed
Standard Chartered had tried to enforce these securities before, but ran into a practical obstacle: it could not serve statutory notices on the companies and their directors. So in 2025, the bank turned to the High Court after the National Land Commission sat on its request for permission to use substituted service.
The court’s patience ran out too. It found that the Commission had ignored the bank’s request for more than two years and ordered it to authorise substituted service. It also gave Standard Chartered a fallback: publish the notices in the Kenya Gazette and a newspaper of national circulation if the Commission still failed to act within seven days.
That is exactly what happened. The bank published its section 90 notices in March 2026, giving the property owners 90 days to fix the default before it could move against the charges under the Land Act. According to the notice, Nakumatt Investments was required to regularise the default within ninety days of the date of publication. The default was not fixed. The latest section 96 notices confirm that Standard Chartered’s power of sale has now arisen, and the bank intends to sell the charged properties after a further 40 days.
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Securities Signed at the Height of Nakumatt’s Expansion
Creative Enterprises pledged its Nairobi land in February 2011 to secure up to KSh26.5 million. Nakumatt Investments charged the four other properties for a combined original principal of KSh92.55 million, before interest, costs and other charges piled on top. Both charges date to the period when Nakumatt was expanding aggressively across East Africa, opening stores in Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda on the back of bank credit.
That expansion eventually broke the company. Nakumatt, once Kenya’s largest supermarket chain, sought protection from creditors in 2017 after racking up debts of more than KSh30 billion and hitting a severe cash flow crisis. Its directors applied for administration that October, saying the process was meant to keep the retailer running as a going concern while it worked out its position with creditors.
By then it was already too late for many suppliers. They had begun cutting off stock over unpaid bills, and shelves across the chain’s stores were emptying out. Nakumatt had also been chasing a proposed sale of a 25 percent stake for US$75 million and had floated a merger with rival Tuskys, hoping either deal would buy it time. Neither materialised, and stores closed one after another as creditors, landlords and suppliers pressed their claims. What had been a network of more than 60 outlets across the region became a case study in how quickly a debt fuelled retail empire can unwind.
A Longer Pattern: Other Lenders Have Chased Nakumatt Linked Assets Before
Standard Chartered is not the only lender that has had to fight for its money. In the years after Nakumatt’s collapse, several banks found themselves competing for the same collateral, much of it tied to the retailer’s directors rather than the holding company itself.
Regulatory filings from that period show the scale of exposure across the banking sector: DTB Bank was owed about Sh3.6 billion, Standard Chartered roughly Sh900 million, KCB around Sh1.9 billion, Bank of Africa Sh328 million, UBA Sh126 million and GT Bank Sh104 million. A single Nairobi property owned by former Nakumatt chief executive Atul Shah’s firm, Collogne Investments, ended up charged to four different banks at once, prompting a High Court judge to question how lenders had extended more than Sh4 billion against one asset worth less than half that. KCB eventually won the right to sell that property, offloading it to Furniture Palace International for Sh1.04 billion, a loss of roughly Sh1 billion against what was owed.
That earlier scramble shows why the current Nakumatt Investments and Creative Enterprises notices matter beyond their headline figures. Standard Chartered’s current action follows the same legal playbook other lenders used years ago: statutory notice, court intervention where service fails, then a forced sale once the notice period lapses.
Standard Chartered’s own balance sheet has been under scrutiny for reasons unrelated to Nakumatt too. The bank recently listed its Chiromo headquarters in Nairobi for sale at KSh1.41 billion, part of a broader retreat that has shrunk its Kenyan branch network from 42 outlets in 2016 to 22 today, as covered by Khusoko. Property disposal, in other words, has become a routine tool for the bank as it reshapes its footprint in the country, whether the asset in question belongs to the bank itself or to a defaulting borrower.
What Happens Next
With the 40 day notice period running, the properties in Nairobi, Mombasa and Nakuru now sit close to the auction block. Barring a last minute settlement from Nakumatt Investments or Creative Enterprises, Standard Chartered is positioned to become the latest lender to convert Nakumatt collateral into cash, nearly a decade after the retailer’s collapse first triggered the rush.
For a company once synonymous with Kenyan retail, the sale of these five parcels would close one more chapter in a recovery process that has outlasted the business itself by years.
