Hamutenya’s Nasan wins approval to acquire 53 service stations

Nasan Energies, co-founded by Miguel Hamutenya, has been given the green light by the Namibian Competition Commission (NaCC) to buy 53 service stations in Namibia.

Nasan Energies applied to purchase the service stations from Vivo Energy/Engen in 2025.

The Namibian understands that the competition commission informed parties involved that the deal has been approved.

Questions sent to the commission were not answered by the time of publication.

The deal attracted objections related to potential monopoly concerns after it emerged that there may be ties between Nasan Energies and Vivo Energy’s parent company Vitol.

A relationship between the two companies would lead to an effective 70% market share for the combined group.

The decision by NaCC to greenlight the acquisition suggests that the commission is satisfied that the companies are not linked.

The sale of the service stations was originally initiated by the commission in 2023 after Vivo Energy sought permission to buy Engen Limited.

A condition of the approval of that merger was that Vivo/Engen would divest 20% of its service stations.

“We said in 2023 we wanted them to give away about 20% so that at the end they have a market share of about 40%,” NaCC director of mergers and acquisitions Johannes Ashipala said in February.

He said the 53 stations should be purchased by a Namibian-owned company with less than 10% of the market share and no existing ties to the selling companies.

But it emerged that Nasan and Vivo may be connected through Hamutenya.

Hamutenya is currently the group chief executive of Millennium Investment Holdings.

Millennium has a partnership with the Vitol group through a venture called Validus Energy.

There were concerns that since the Vitol group is a major shareholder of Vivo Energy, ties between the companies would result in a monopoly.

When Ashipala presented his initial findings in February, he said the NaCC was considering the issues of security of supply as well as consumer choice.

Nasan has denied any connections between itself and Vivo Energy, which the decision of the competition commission seems to confirm.

Photo: Miguel Hamutenya

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