Actis has reduced by close to two-thirds its shareholding in Umeme as the firm exits a nine-year investment in the Ugandan power firm.

The UK private equity firm says that 20 combined Kenyan and Ugandan institutional investors have bought Sh7.5 billion worth of shares that Actis owned in Umeme.

The firm had a 60.08 per cent stake worth Sh12.6 billion in Umeme, based on the Sh21.1 billion market capitalisation the utility provider had at the time of announcing that it was exiting its investment.

On Monday the firm announced it had successfully sold $85.5 (Sh7.5 billion) to institutional investors, leaving it with around Sh5.1 billion in shares.

“The shares were bought by over 20 new and existing blue-chip institutional investors in a heavily oversubscribed secondary offer through the Uganda Securities Exchange (USE) and the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE),” said Actis in a statement.

READ: Umeme shares suspended pending stake sale

Investec Asset Management and Uganda’s National Social Security Fund have become some of the largest shareholders in Umeme although Actis did not provide a breakdown of how much the two own.

Actis is also selling another $5 million shares to retail investors, further reducing its stake.

“Actis will shortly make additional shares available to local retail investors and to Umeme’s directors and management team...,” said the statement.