Panafrican Equipment opens Sh500m office in Nairobi

Machinery distributor Panafrican Equipment Kenya has opened a new Sh500 million office in Nairobi as it eyes market growth and expansion in the region.

The new premises on Mombasa Road will double as the firm’s East African headquarters.

The company is a subsidiary of the Panafrican Equipment Group (PEG) which operates in Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, Siera Leone and Dubai.

“The combined cost for the new facility is Sh500 million.

We agree there are challenges in the market at the moment but believe things will thrive,” said PEG founder and chairman Charles Field-Marsham.

PEG is the principal distributor of Komatsu, Wirtgen Group and AGCO machinery brands in Kenya. Its product line-up include equipment used in road construction,quarrу and aggregates, heavу and light mining as well as power and energу sectors.

The firm says it sees opportunities in the extractive industries and hopes to tap into the continued development in the power and energy markets.

“We believe that domestic needs for industry diversification, economic growth and infrastructure development, will drive the mid to long term development of the energy and extractive sectors,” said PEG chef executive Scott McCaw.

Prior to moving to the new premises, Panafrican Equipment Kenya had been leasing space on Bunyala Road in Nairobi.

PEG has been operating in Kenya for 22 years and has grown from a single source distributor of Komatsu construction equipment to a multi-territory and multi-brand distributor.

In 2016, Panafrican Equipment fully acquired Nakuru-based Farm Machinery Distributors (East Africa) —which has been linked to former powerful Cabinet minister Nicholas Biwott since the early 1970s.

The deal, whose value was not disclosed, offered Panafrican Equipment a presence in the agro-based market given it is heavy in infrastructure, energy and mining segment.