East African Breweries (EABL) has agreed to buy a 20 percent stake in its Kenyan unit from SABMiller’s African unit for 19.53 billion shillings (USD 225 million), EABL said on 6 June 2011.

Readers, hold on to your seats. Diageo is said to have offered USD 200 million for Ethiopia’s state-owned Meta Abo brewery which in its last financial year made a profit of USD 2.6 million on beer sales of perhaps 600,000 hl. That’s a multiple of … sheer madness.

ActionAid’s campaign against SABMiller struck target. After having been accused of tax dodging by the London charity ActionAid in November last year, the authorities in five African states have decided to work together to examine the brewer’s tax affairs. On 6 May 2011 SABMiller again rejected any claims of tax avoidance in Africa after officials from South Africa, Ghana, Zambia, Tanzania and Mauritius had come together in a South African-led African Tax Administrative Forum to look at the group’s tax payments.

Have they all gone mad? Or did global brewers suffer from a last minute panic attack in the scramble for Africa? According to Ethiopian media, Heineken, SABMiller, Castel and Carlsberg have submitted offers for the 290,000 hl state-owned Bedele Brewery, which many think blatantly over-valued. Heineken’s bid of USD 85.2 million exceeded those of Carlsberg Brewery (USD 68 million), Castel Ethiopia (USD 64 million) and SABMiller (USD 70 million). In January 2011 Ethiopia’s privatisation agency PPESA invited bids for Bedele Brewery. These are currently being reviewed.

So Diageo has made a bid for the Meta Abo brewery on its own. It’s another madcap offer – rumoured to run to USD 150 million, which is way over the top like Heineken’s USD 85 million bid for Bedele Brewery. But the interesting question is not why the world’s number one drinks group and brewer of Guinness beer is prepared to spend so much on a medium-sized brewery in a market where all the global big wigs will be stepping on each others’ toes. The more pertinent issue is: why isn’t Diageo going for Meta Abo in tandem with its Kenyan partner, East-African Breweries (EABL)?

Times are a-changing and sometimes actually for the better. Ten years ago, your correspondent asked the CEO of what was then still SAB, Graham Mackay, what his company intended to do about the HIV/AIDS pandemic which had already begun to ravage Africa. His reply was: “Why should I be doing anything about it?” My reply was: “You could do something out of the goodness of your heart. Or you could do it for simple business reasons because if you don’t you will have to write-down your investments in human capital pretty quickly.”

“Double and half the price of beer and go farming!” That’s how Mark Bowman, President of SAB Miller Africa summed up his company’s strategy in Africa at an investor conference in Florida in February 2011. What could he have meant by this cryptic remark?

In case you are interested, bids have to be submitted in “wax-sealed envelopes to the privatisation agency before 28 March 2011.” Yep.

After several days of protest against President Mubarak’s regime, several large oil companies and other multinationals, Heineken among them, have shut down operations.

With the acquisition, Heineken will be assuming a controlling stake in Sona Breweries, IBBI, Benue Breweries, Life and Champion Breweries, which currently brew brands such as Goldberg, Williams Dark Ale and Malta Gold.