Panafrican Equipment Group Invests Ksh500M In New Kenyan Office, Eyes Market Growth

Panafrican Equipment Kenya Limited has announced the official opening of its new offices in Nairobi which will also double as its East Africa headquarters. This comes as the company eyes for mid and long term market growth and expansion opportunities in Kenya and East Africa.

The firm, a subsidiary of the Panafrican Equipment Group (“PEG”) is a recognized leader in providing equipment and after-sales support solutions. It is the principal distributor of Komatsu, Wirtgen Group and AGCO machinery in Kenya widely used in support of the mining and mineral processing, civil and infrastructure, power and energy, agricultural and forestry sectors.

Speaking during the unveiling of the new office, Charles Field-Marsham, PEG Executive Chairman said that the new facility reflects their commitment to Kenya and their continued investment in support of their customers in this market.  

“The combined cost for the new facility is Ksh 500 million. Albeit there are current market challenges proving headwinds against many of our sectors, from a mid to long-term perspective, we believe Kenya has the potential if managed correctly, for significant infrastructure development,” said Field-Marsham. 

Moreover, Scott McCaw, PEG Group Chief Executive Officer, said the firm sees opportunities in the extractive industries as well as continued development in the power and energy markets.

“With Kenya and East Africa focusing on increasing its power supply and growing its extractive market, we believe that such domestic needs for industry diversification, economic growth, and infrastructure development, will certainly drive the mid to long-term development of these two sectors”, said McCaw. 

To build technical capacity, the firm, across the group, has been investing Kshs 75 million annually in training and development of its personnel as well as customers. This is set for a further boost by the upgraded Panafrican Training Facility in the new premises. 

At the facility, PEG offers operator, technical and skills certification both internally and to its customers. Since the customer training programs were launched, more than 20 domestic companies and government institutions have since been trained.

The firm has been in operation in Kenya for 22 years and has grown from a single territory distributor of Komatsu construction equipment to a multi-territory (eight African countries), multi-line (three core brands as above) distributor.The growth has seen the company employ directly and indirectly up to 400 people while recording over four times turnover growth over the last ten years.