The late ex-President Daniel Moi’s family has sold a majority stake in their company Siginon Aviation Company.
Gideon Moi who oversees operations of the company sold the 51% stake to Turkish logistics firm, Celebi Aviation Holding which has since taken over operations in East Africa.
Siginon Aviation Company is an affiliate of Siginon Group also owned by the Moi family. He is assisted by Meshack Toroitich Kipturgo to run it.
Gideon together with Joshua Kulei, a long-serving personal assistant to Moi holds 12.5% stake each in Siginon Group while 75% is under Kabarak University.
Gideon is the institution’s Chancellor.
With the sale of the stake, Celebi Aviation Company has now appointed Ferda Yakar as CEO to run operations in East Africa.
In the works is a comprehensive business plan to run the company’s centres in Nairobi and Eldoret Airports which are expected to transition in the next 100 days under the new ownership.
Moi was established in 1985 as a logistics and air cargo provider in Kenya which would later expand East Africa to cover countries such as Uganda and Tanzania.
Reports indicate that in the last couple of years, Siginon’s operations in Uganda were going through turbulent times.
This may have been one of the reasons why Moi family sold off the majority stake to make even having acquired the Ugandan centre for millions of shillings.
Siginon Group has a strong market presence in the Kenyan market when it comes to supply chain logistics, ground handling, container freight stations, clearing and forwarding, trucking and warehousing among other things.
In a past interview, Meshack Kipturgo who has been the group’s managing director said that the logistics giant in East Africa started off as small clearing and forwarding company.
Siginon Group would pump Ksh1 billion into a state-of-the art cargo terminal in Nairobi. Annual turnover for the group was at an estimated Ksh10 billion.
