Mary-Ann Musangi, who runs Kenya’s Haco Industries, wants the consumer-goods maker her late father, Chris Kirubi, built to reach 30 African countries by 2030, with five regional hubs. Instead of building factories abroad, Haco signs local partners to make its products. Its West African start, announced on 6 October, is a deal with Ghana’s Ayewa Aberfur to make and sell Haco’s Amara skin lotion.
Growth without new plants needs little outside money, and that matters while the family weighs who should own the company next.
Decades as someone else’s factory
Haco dates from 1974. The company and the Nation call Kirubi its founder; The Star’s 2021 obituary says he bought all of Haco, then a subsidiary of a Dutch firm, in 1998. For more than 40 years Haco made BIC pens and shavers, until BIC decided in 2018 to take that business back, the Nation reported. In 2008 Kirubi sold 51% of Haco to South Africa’s Tiger Brands, then bought the stake back after the partners disagreed on strategy; Kenya’s competition authority cleared the buyback in December 2017.
Musangi took charge in 2019, two years before her father died. Haco now makes about 90 products.
How the Ghana deal works
Haco keeps oversight of key formulations and quality standards. Ayewa Aberfur brings factory capacity and local market knowledge, with regular audits. Musangi told Business Daily that Haco is not investing in factories or equipment in Ghana, Billionaires.Africa reported.
This is an asset-light model: the company keeps the brand, recipes and standards, and uses someone else’s machines. In contract manufacturing, a brand owner pays a factory to produce for it; in licensing, the partner makes and sells under the brand and pays a fee. Haco’s terms, including any royalty, were not disclosed.
Haco knows both sides: the BIC exit showed that a contract factory can lose the business. As brand owner, it now faces the opposite risks: a partner that cuts corners, or learns enough to compete.
Three roads for the second generation
According to The Africa Report, as summarised by Billionaires.Africa, the family has explored a stock market listing or a strategic investor as part of succession planning. There are three usual roads: keep full ownership and fund growth from profits; list, gaining a market price and public scrutiny; or sell a stake to an industry partner, who brings capital and opinions. Haco tried the third road once, and it ended over strategy. Many families leave such choices open, as our succession data shows.
What to watch
- Whether Nigeria and Senegal, reported as the next targets, follow the Ghana model.
- Where the five hubs will be, and whether any are Haco’s own plants.
- Any formal step towards a listing or an investor.
A fair caveat
Haco does not publish revenue, and its market count is unclear: Billionaires.Africa, citing CNN, says eight export markets but names five, one of them Kenya itself, while Musangi’s 2024 article in The Standard listed 11 countries. Accounts of how Kirubi came to own Haco also differ.
Questions to bring to your advisors
If we grew through partners rather than plants, what would we own and how would we protect it? Before selling a stake, have we agreed what happens if we disagree on strategy? These are questions to bring to your advisors, not advice.
