A quiet businessman who made his fortune transferring crates of beer via Nairobi’s backroads has stepped into the highlight, asking a Kenyan court docket to freeze one of many nation’s largest company offers.
Peter Burugu Gachuru, the founder and chairman of Bia Tosha Distributors, is behind a Excessive Courtroom problem searching for to dam Diageo’s deliberate sale of its majority stake in East African Breweries Restricted to Japan’s Asahi Group. The proposed transaction, valued at about $2.3 billion, would shift management of a flagship Kenyan client firm with manufacturers that dominate bars, supermarkets and roadside kiosks.
Bia Tosha argues the sale shouldn’t proceed whereas a protracted working court docket combat between the distributor and Diageo linked corporations stays unresolved. A lawyer for the distributor mentioned the court docket has licensed the matter as pressing and set a listening to for Friday to problem instructions. Diageo and EABL didn’t instantly remark.
The authorized conflict is simply the latest chapter in a profession that started inside EABL and later become a distribution machine that, by Burugu’s personal estimate, helped transfer a significant slice of the brewer’s output.
A Kenyan enterprise profile described Burugu as a former EABL worker who rose from an accounts trainee to steer its distribution and logistics operation earlier than taking early retirement in 1995. He mentioned his firm dealt with roughly 12 out of each 100 instances that left EABL’s Ruaraka manufacturing unit, a declare that underscored his leverage in a market the place whoever controls supply usually controls loyalty.
Burugu’s first large break got here throughout Kenya’s so known as beer wars period, when EABL wanted dependable arms in Kiambu and elements of Nairobi. He registered Bia Yetu, purchased vehicles with financial institution financing and took inventory on credit score, then later fashioned Bia Tosha after one other distributor in Nairobi’s west folded. He finally merged the companies, increasing into Industrial Space, South C, Higher Hill, Hurlingham, Kiserian, Rongai, Juja and the street hall stretching towards the Tanzanian border.
At its peak, the distributor described an operation constructed for quantity: about 130 staff, round 30 heavy obligation vehicles, and annual deliveries that it mentioned reached as much as 2.4 million instances of beer plus 20,000 instances of spirits. The identical profile put the agency’s income in a single latest yr at 4.6 billion Kenyan shillings.
Burugu additionally broadened his bets past beer. By way of an actual property automobile known as Mugaa Investments, he has been recognized because the developer behind Kiambu Mall, a multi storey retail venture that courted nationwide and regional tenants. In previous interviews carried by Kenyan enterprise press, Burugu spoke of the mall instead for consumers who in any other case journey to Nairobi, and the reporting described offers with manufacturers similar to Java and well being care suppliers amongst its tenants.
His public profile, nonetheless, is outlined much less by ribbon cuttings than by courtroom fights.
The distribution dispute on the middle of the present petition has been grinding via Kenya’s courts since 2016, bearing on territory rights, competitors claims and whether or not funds Bia Tosha says it made for goodwill must be refunded when routes are reassigned. A Supreme Courtroom ruling within the broader Bia Tosha matter reinstated earlier Excessive Courtroom orders and faulted decrease courts for not conclusively addressing the problems, sending the case again for precedence listening to.
Courtroom information and associated reporting describe a relationship that soured as Bia Tosha accused Diageo linked entities of unlawfully repossessing distribution territories and refusing to return goodwill funds, whereas the brewer aspect argued contracts weren’t unique and sought arbitration.
Now, with Diageo planning to exit EABL via a sale to Asahi, Bia Tosha is urgent an easier level: if Diageo’s stake leaves Kenya, the distributor fears any eventual court docket order may very well be more durable to implement. The distributor needs Diageo barred from promoting or transferring its EABL shares pending willpower of the petition, arguing the multinational’s stake is a key asset inside Kenyan jurisdiction.
Burugu’s identify has surfaced in different disputes as properly. In a separate actual property combat reported in 2021, a Excessive Courtroom choose stopped improvement on a 16.7 acre Runda property amid competing claims involving a collapsed lender and an organization linked to Burugu. The report mentioned the land was valued at about 3 billion shillings and ordered the established order whereas possession questions had been litigated.
Individuals who have labored across the drinks commerce describe Burugu as a tough edged negotiator who understands EABL’s provide chain virtually in addition to the corporate itself. His household has additionally been drawn into the enterprise, with reporting that his daughter, Anne Marie Burugu, took over each day administration as he stepped again.
The end result of the brand new problem may ripple past one man’s fortunes. EABL is a bellwether inventory in Nairobi, and Diageo’s determination to promote has already put regulators, traders and opponents on alert. Asahi, searching for scale, would inherit not solely breweries and types but additionally the delicate politics of distribution, the place the gap between a warehouse gate and a neighborhood bar can determine market share.
