KCB VENTURE 1 final

PROJECT FINANCE
If you take a walk in Nairobi’s Industrial area,
you will probably notice Crown Paints’ factory
located on Mogadishu Road. Hundreds of men in
aprons smeared with different colours of paint
are busy doing their thing.
It’s a busy place where
man and machine form an
intriguing combination.
A sea of humanity mills
around the plant, producing
about 1 million litres of paint
a year.
However, almost two years
ago, the company, which is
the country’s leading paint
manufacturer, discovered that
its factory was not optimally
serving its business.
The company also found
that for every tin of paint
transported to distant markets,
it was actually transporting
70 per cent water, the amount
of water that is contained in a
can of paint.
Last year, the company
decided to open up an
automated factory in Kisumu,
which could help it solve the
inefficiencies.
“Kisumu is located at a
central place to serve the
Western Kenyan market and
neighboring countries. From
the Kisumu plant, we can use
Lake Victoria to send paints
to Mwanza and use the road
to transport our products to
Rwanda and Uganda,” Rakesh
Rao, the CEO of the company,
says, from his office located at
Crown Paints headquarters in
Nairobi’s Likoni Road.
The company, which has
been in existence since 1958,
has 75 per cent market share
in Western Kenya serving
Kisumu, Eldoret and several
other towns in the region.
However, the period in
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