Can Art become an Investment Asset?

Kenya's #1 newsletter among business leaders & policy makers

January 06, 2026

Newsletter Sponsor

Hello 👋🏽 It's Brian from The Kenyan Wall Street.

In today's newsletter, we review the NSE’s inaugural Arts Wealth exhibition that interrogates if it is time for investors in Kenya to perceive art as a value for their capital.

Also, we analyze the innovation that is reshaping Kenya's real estate.

Here are our stories for the day…

Can Art become an Investment Asset?

NSE Chairman Kiprono Kittony

For a long time in Kenya, art has lived politely outside the balance sheet. It is admired, discussed, occasionally inherited, but rarely treated as something that could sit comfortably beside equities or bonds.

That assumption was gently unsettled at the NSE’s inaugural Arts Wealth exhibition, which proposed a simple but revolutionary idea: that paintings and sculptures might belong not only on walls, but in portfolios. Culture is not a distraction from capital, but one of its older disguises.

The late Dr. Chris Kirubi’s art collections displayed at the inaugural NSE WEALTH Art Event

The argument is hardly radical in the realms of global finance, where art has long functioned as a store of value and a hedge against uncertainty. What makes the Nairobi moment interesting is its timing. Kenya’s creative scene is vibrant but economically under-structured, rich in talent yet poor in exit routes.

The NSE’s interest suggests a desire to do more than celebrate artists. It hints at a bid to formalize them, to give creativity the bureaucratic scaffolding that allows money to linger rather than pass through.

Whether art can truly become a financial instrument in Kenya remains an open question, one that turns less on inspiration than on valuation, trust, and rules.

Read the full article here >>>>>

The Changing Landscape of Real Estate

By Fred Obura

A suburb

Kenya’s real estate market has entered a phase where the home is no longer merely built but configured. Screens now mediate first impressions, algorithms shape pricing expectations, and efficiency has become a selling point rather than a footnote. What once depended on land and timing increasingly depends on systems that promise fewer frictions and more certainty. Developers, in response, are drifting away from pure construction and toward orchestration, bundling technology, financing, and daily life into a single proposition. The appeal is geared towards enabling lower costs, smoother ownership, and neighborhoods that manage themselves.

Read the full article here >>>>>

Is Kenya’s stock market entering a golden era?

In this exclusive interview, The Kenyan Wall Street founder Erick Asuma sits down with Frank Mwiti, CEO of the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), to unpack the landmark 100 Billion KPC (Kenya Pipeline Company) IPO and the strategic roadmap for Kenya’s financial markets in 2026.