Raila Odinga’s quiet business empire: energy, real estate and strategic stakes

Raila Odinga’s death on Oct. 15 has pushed fresh attention onto a business portfolio he long kept in the background of a public life defined by politics. The 80-year-old former prime minister died in India after a cardiac arrest, according to his office and hospital officials, ending a five-decade run as Kenya’s most influential opposition figure.

Behind the rallies and reform drives was a set of commercial interests built methodically over years — anchored in energy and metal fabrication, structured largely through family holdings, and designed to be durable in a country where politics and business often collide.

At the center sits Be Energy, an oil-marketing company whose Kenyan unit counts the Odinga family as a significant shareholder. Corporate records show the Odingas hold about 35 percent of Be Energy via Pan African Petroleum Company, alongside a majority stake controlled by Saudi Arabia’s Bakri family through International Energy World S.A. Be Energy operates a growing retail and distribution footprint supplying fuels across Kenya and into neighboring markets, part of an expansion that has positioned the brand among the country’s better-known independents.

A second pillar is East African Spectre, the Nairobi-based LPG cylinder manufacturing and revalidation firm Odinga helped found decades ago. The company evolved from a modest fabrication outfit into a key supplier to oil marketers, with the family maintaining board-level roles. Public materials list Ida Odinga as managing director and Raila Odinga Jr. as a director — an illustration of how the enterprise has remained tightly held. Over time, the family also built related interests in logistics and storage, complementing the core manufacturing business.

Real assets and land have rounded out the portfolio. The Odingas have been associated with agricultural and commercial holdings in western Kenya and Nairobi, part of a strategy that offered ballast against cyclical fuel margins while riding long-term urban growth. Those positions have periodically drawn scrutiny from political rivals, but they also reflect a common playbook among Kenya’s post-liberalization elites: cash-flow businesses at the core, property as the stabilizer.

The empire’s structure is as notable as its sectors. Rather than holding assets directly, Odinga relied on family companies and trusts to own stakes — Pan African Petroleum on the energy side and a cluster of closely held entities around Spectre — a set-up that insulated the businesses from everyday political whiplash and enabled succession planning through active roles for family members.

The overlap between commerce and politics was never far away. Odinga’s energy ties gave him a ringside seat — and sometimes a stake — in debates over import policy, retail pricing and competition with global brands. That proximity drew periodic conflict-of-interest accusations; allies countered that the businesses predated his top-tier political bids and operated in the same regulatory environment as rivals. What’s clear is that the mix of fuel, fabrication and property gave him both leverage and resilience through cycles that felled less diversified tycoons.

Odinga’s passing now raises practical questions about stewardship and continuity. Be Energy’s shareholder registry points to a stable, minority family position alongside a long-standing majority partner, an arrangement that typically favors operational continuity. At East African Spectre, the presence of family executives suggests an orderly handover is more likely than not.

For an opposition leader who never quite crossed the presidential finish line, Odinga leaves a private-sector footprint that is unusually durable by Kenyan standards: a cash-generating energy bet, a metalworks manufacturer with entrenched market demand, and real-asset hedges accumulated over decades. In the immediate aftermath of his death, the politics will dominate. But the businesses — designed to outlast electoral cycles — are built to endure.