East African media conglomerate Nation Media Group has reported a net loss of KSh 308.6 million for the full year ended 31 December 2025, its third consecutive annual loss, as a collapse in print revenues erodes a business that generated over KSh 2.5 billion in net profit just twelve years ago.
- •Turnover fell 3.1% to KSh 6.04 billion from KSh 6.23 billion in 2024, with reduced print revenues cited as the primary drag.
- •Loss before income tax widened 26.5% to KSh 320.8 million, while earnings per share deteriorated to negative KSh 1.8 from negative KSh 1.5 a year earlier.
- •On 10 March 2026, the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development announced the sale of its entire 54.08% stake in NMG to Taarifa Limited, controlled by Tanzanian billionaire Rostam Azizi, ending a 66-year association dating to the group's founding in 1959.
The board withheld the final dividend for a second consecutive year. The last dividend paid was KSh 5.5 per share for FY2018.
The FY2025 numbers sit at the bottom of one of the most complete revenue collapses among NSE-listed blue chips. Turnover has fallen in every year since the KSh 13.37 billion peak in FY2013, a cumulative decline of nearly 55% to KSh 6.04 billion in FY2025.
Net profit of KSh 2.53 billion in FY2013 has swung to a KSh 308.6 million loss. EPS has moved from KSh 15.9 in FY2012 to negative KSh 1.8 in FY2025.
The trajectory tracks directly with Kenya's print market collapse with the industry-wide newspaper circulation falling from approximately 117,000 copies daily in 2011 to 39,300 in 2024, a 66% decline in thirteen years.
NMG's revenue decline has lagged the circulation fall, as cover price increases and growing digital and broadcasting revenues partially absorbed the volume loss but that buffer is narrowing.
Digital revenue grew 5% in FY2025, with the group's digital footprint expanding to 64.7 million users from 62.5 million as broadcasting revenue rose 5%. Gross profit margin held at 68.4%, broadly flat against 68.3% in FY2024, though well below the above-80% margins the group sustained through FY2017 to FY2022, reflecting structural margin compression over the period.
The deeper problem is below the gross profit line. A cost structure built for a KSh 13 billion revenue business has not been cut proportionately as revenues nearly halved. Operating cash flow, the highest in the dataset at KSh 3.28 billion in FY2012, turned negative in FY2023 and stood at negative KSh 464.4 million in FY2025. Cash and cash equivalents stood at KSh 1.50 billion at year end.
NMG has accelerated restructuring, closing its Mombasa regional newsroom in March 2026, merging Uganda's Saturday and Sunday Monitor into a single Weekend Monitor edition, and implementing multiple redundancy rounds since 2016.
The results arrive weeks after a landmark ownership transition. Azizi, who co-founded Mwananchi Communications before its subsequent acquisition by NMG, has pledged to uphold editorial independence and invest in the group's digital future. The transaction is pending regulatory approval.
