{"id":42862,"date":"2026-08-17T15:53:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T13:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=42862"},"modified":"2026-08-17T15:53:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T13:53:27","slug":"kenyas-competition-regulator-seeks-reserve-fund-in-diageos-eabl-sale","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/kenyas-competition-regulator-seeks-reserve-fund-in-diageos-eabl-sale\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya&#8217;s competition regulator seeks reserve fund in Diageo&#8217;s EABL sale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kenya&#8217;s competition regulator has proposed that East African Breweries Ltd (EABL) set aside as much as 15 billion Kenyan Shillings ($115 million) in \u200creserve funds before approving Diageo&#8217;s sale of its majority stake in the brewer to Japan&#8217;s Asahi Group Holdings, Kenya&#8217;s <em>Business Daily<\/em> newspaper reported this Monday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The newspaper said the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) \u2060wanted the reserve to cover potential liabilities and third-party claims linked to EABL, a condition that has stalled completion of the transaction.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Diageo said there was &#8220;no basis whatsoever for these proposed conditions&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The supposed concerns are entirely unrelated to the transaction and their imposition would be unlawful. Diageo and Asahi are continuing to discuss this \u200cissue \u2060with the CAK,&#8221; a Diageo Spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The competition authority did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Diageo agreed in December 2025 to sell its 65% stake in EABL to Asahi \u2060for about $2.3 billion.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The transaction has faced several court challenges in Kenya, including a suit by distributor Bia Tosha that was dismissed \u2060in April, and a later case in which a minority shareholder temporarily secured an order halting the \u2060deal, prompting EABL to ask Kenya&#8217;s Chief Justice in June to speed up related hearings.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":42863,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-42862","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Kenya competition regulator seeks $115 million safeguard reserve in EABL takeover","published_date":"2026-08-17 15:23:23","news_description":"Kenya competition regulator seeks $115 million safeguard reserve in EABL takeover","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42864,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42862\/revisions\/42864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=42862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}