Nairobi, June 1 -- About 90 percent of the top owners of Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) Plc bought their shares through proxies during the firm's initial public offering (IPO), keeping the identity of the investors anonymous.

Regulatory filings show that 18 of the top 20 shareholders of KPC are under nominee accounts after demand from Kenyan institutional investors and the Ugandan government helped the IPO become oversubscribed.

Of the top KPC shareholders, only the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) and Kenya's Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority (UFAA) are revealed as beneficial owners with 31 percent and 4.7 percent stakes, respectively.

Nominee accounts are registered to hold shares on behalf of the true owners, a structure used glo...