The Kenya Tea Development Agency Holdings PLC (KTDA Holdings) has announced that individual smallholder tea farmers affiliated with the organization will have an opportunity to own direct shareholding of the company alongside their respective 54 Tea Factory Companies.
This comes after KTDA shareholders amended the company’s Articles of Association to enable the allotment of the company’s shares to individual farmers under a new category of shareholders known as “Tea Farmers.”
The agency says that over 620,000 individual tea farmers spread out across Kenya will collectively own 5 million ordinary shares, with the 54 Factory Companies where the same tea farmers are shareholders holding 24 million ordinary shares in KTDA Holdings PLC.
KTDA Listing
The company has also approved the future passage of the listing of KTDA in the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
Other important changes to the company’s articles include voting for all company directors at the Annual General Meetings which is similar to companies under the Capital Markets Authority, where elections are carried out on the floor of the AGM.
To safeguard the farmer from unscrupulous share buyers, the shareholders locked the tradability of the allotted shares for ten years. This practice has previously been done by other institutions to safeguard shareholders’ interests.
In a circular issued within the week, tea farmers have been requested to visit their buying centers to know their respective share allotments.
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