On Condition the merged entity shall for a three (3) year period retain 1,749 employees of the total 1,760 permanent employees.
The Competition Authority of Kenya has approved the acquisition of a controlling stake in Almasi Beverages Limited by Coca-Cola Sabco (East Africa) Limited.
According to CAK, post-merger, the market structure and concentration is unlikely to change since the merging entities both bottle products for The Coca-Cola Company and intend to continue with this line of business for the foreseeable future.
However, to protect retailers who lease cooling refrigerators from the bottler and largely constitute the SMES, “These businesses are constrained for space and have limited financial power to acquire coolers from The Coca-Cola Company’s competitors,” said CAK.
Therefore, CCBA is required to continue to operate the current bottling plants of the Merged Entity in Nyeri, Eldoret, Nairobi, Molo and Kisumu for at least three (3) years after completion of the proposed transaction. In addition, CCBA shall within nine (9) months of completion of the transaction amend the agreements between the merged entity and its distributors to permit such distributors to distribute other non-alcoholic ready-to-drink if the agreements dictate otherwise.
Further, CAK requires “The merged entity shall for a three (3) year period following completion of the proposed transaction retain 1,749 employees of the total 1,760 permanent employees.”
Early October, Centum Investment Company announced the completion of the sale of its 53.9% shareholding in Almasi Beverages Limited (ABL) and 27.6% shareholding in Nairobi Bottlers Limited (NBL) to Coca-Cola Sabco East Africa Limited (CCSEA), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa Limited (CCBA).
