OUR STORY…

We are celebrating our 35th anniversary, although our story started over 50 years ago. It’s fair to say that GBO, UAC, Unilever, were some of the first movers across the African continent. Then came the oil crisis and with the global rise of the PLC in the 1980’s too, this led to great changes for these organisations. It would lead them into a decades’ long process of restructuring. Unilever would divest it’s interest in GBO and UAC to concentrate on manufacturing soap products and building a first class portfolio of brands.

So Retail, Distribution, Motors, Textiles and Building Materials all had to go somewhere.

At the end of the 1980’s Bernard Scott was closing his restructuring responsibilities and he made the decision to risk everything and resign. After 28 years of service with GBO/UAC/Unilever he decided to do his own thing.

(Image - Bernard Scotts Office 1971, Lagos.)

1990-2000

It started with a bit of trading business. In 1988, Altruistic Limited was registered. Some old associates were in need of things like fishing nets and pigs feet. Then an opportunity to work with a friend who was the importer of National Panasonic in Liberia. Using combined skills of shipping and complex cross border trade finance processes, to facilitate that Panasonic business between the Japan HQ and Monrovia.

Things grew. All those contacts and all that local structural change had created a great opportunity. So much so, 3 new companies emerged to accommodate the different sectors of interest. Bernard’s son Paul also joined at this time.

B&B Exports International Ltd:- This handled the relationships with Food and Drink companies that we had agreements with by this time, including: Kellogg’s, Mars, Tesco, Rowntree Mackintosh, Wilkinson Sword. Mongolia was a destination then too.

Kensington Pharmaceuticals Ltd:- This handled the relationships with OTC and Ethical Pharma businesses: AstraZeneca, GSK, Mentholatum, Bell’s. It was also home to own brand products which had been purchased from GBO/UAC, including PICCAN.

This also led us to become a fully registered business with MHRA - Medicines & Health Regulatory Authority.

Kensington Architectural Ltd:- Building materials sector. Kensington Architectural Ironmongery, British Gypsum (Lafarge), Dexion, Porcelenosa, Armitage Shanks.

In 1999 a decision was made to focus on the FMCG and Pharma sectors and we consolidated the activities into one company-

Kensington International Marketing Company Ltd. We effected this with a name change from Altruistic Limited.

We also decided that business in Africa would be the priority. We now needed to decide how we would market our services.

2000-2010

People like simple, so Kensington International Marketing Company Limited became KIMCO and KIMCO was synonymous with Africa, so the brand KIMCO Africa emerged.

We were a hybrid of 3 types of models. A Broker, A Distributor, An Export Department.

We opened offices in Nigeria in 2000.

We also welcomed Sue Scott into the business.

To accommodate this demand for services and the cultural shift to having more project based relationships rather than one pre-determined path, KIMCO Africa decided to look at what they were offering in an organisational context and give each element of that a name and a price.

KIMCO became a Service Provider- Building Brands in Africa.

With the help of Florian Ristig we designed a package of Services. This allowed clients to pick and mix whatever they needed. They could choose from Trade Services or Consulting Services.

2010-2020

KIMCO experienced a decade of great growth and change. Africa Rising and BRICS were born and everybody rushed to double digit growth ‘emerging’ markets. KIMCO was immersed in running multi-country, multi-distributors on behalf of its clients, mostly in Africa and The Middle East and it was a very exciting time.

Brainstorming and being a spring board for some of the worlds most well known companies and brands in the industry. To enhance options for clients we expanded our services to include Research, Consulting and Information.

In addition, we built Intellectual Property with Processes, Knowledge and both built and acquired product Trade Marks. In some cases the restructuring has led to re-branding of some assets and activities, which had been accumulated.

The essence of the decade was to embark on value creation and intellectual property growth with different business units.

2020-

Covid arrives and engulfs the world, as Chris Newman rejoins the business as Managing Director.

Our model continues to develop to include additional on-the-ground resources, enabling us to provide a more agile set of services.

We have two new business units being developed which will enhance the business further. We expect to launch these in 2024.