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Diageo set to pocket Sh4.47bn dividend on delayed EABL deal
Kenya Breweries Limited (KBL) Managing Director Andrew Kilonzo (left) shakes hands with East Africa Breweries Limited (EABL) Chief Finance Officer (CFO) Justin Mollel (right) during the companies 2026 Financial year Results on August 06, 2026 at Tusker Brewhouse. With them is EABL Group Managing Director Jane Karuku.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu | Nation Media Group
British multinational Diageo is set to pocket a dividend of Sh4.47 billion from EABL as the proposed sale of its stake in the Kenyan firm to Japan’s Asahi Holdings remains held up by court cases.
EABL announced a final dividend of Sh8.70 per share for the year ended June 2026, to be paid on October 31, 2026, to shareholders on its books as at October 19, 2026.
In April, the brewer paid an interim dividend of Sh4 per share, meaning that its full-year distribution has risen to Sh12.70 per share, from Sh8 in the year to June 2025.
The company’s majority owner, Diageo, will therefore be banking a full-year dividend of Sh6.53 billion, comprising the final dividend of Sh4.47 billion and the Sh2.06 billion already earned through the interim distribution.
In the previous year, Diageo was paid a total dividend of Sh4.11 billion.
With the sale transaction frozen by court cases, EABL will likely still have the EABL shares by the time the books close on the 2026 final dividend.
Diageo and Asahi agreed the sale of the 65 percent stake in EABL for a consideration of $2.354 billion (Sh304.6 billion) in December 2025. Asahi also agreed to purchase Diageo’s 53.68 percent holding in spirits producer and importer UDV Kenya for $646 million (Sh83.6 billion), taking the total size of the deal to Sh388.2 billion.
The two firms had anticipated closing the transaction within the second half of the year, with the main consideration coming around obtaining regulatory approvals from the East African markets in which they operate.
EABL chief executive officer Jane Karuku on Thursday declined to comment on the transaction involving the parent firm and the court cases. She, however, said that the deal has received all approvals in Uganda and Tanzania, with only Kenya’s competition authority yet to do so.
“We thought it was going to be faster, but it has been difficult. When it comes to regulatory approval, that should be pretty simple,” said Ms Karuku.
An additional hurdle was thrown up by multiple, successive court cases challenging the sale—some of which have been dismissed by the High Court— leading to a protest by the company that parallel litigation has created the risk of conflicting rulings.
The dismissed petitions include a bid by beer distributor Bia Tosha to stop the transaction pending the conclusion of a distributorship row with EABL, and a separate petition by Kenyan construction firm JILK Construction Company that has long-running commercial disputes with EABL.
The court ruled that the litigation and disputes could still be determined even if the transaction proceeded.
However, in June 2026, the High Court suspended the transaction pending hearing of a petition by Christine Irungu, who argued that minority shareholders were denied material information when Diageo increased its stake in the brewer from 50.03 percent to 65 percent in 2023 before pursuing the sale to Asahi.
She further argued that Diageo’s acquisition of the additional shares was presented as a long-term investment demonstrating its confidence in East Africa’s growth prospects.
The petitioner contended that the subsequent decision to sell the enlarged stake would raise questions about whether investors received full disclosure of material information when the tender offer was undertaken.
The hiccups in the Diageo transaction are in contrast to the disposal by the government of a 15 percent stake or six billion shares of Safaricom to South Africa’s Vodafone Group, which was done in time for the buyer to enjoy the company’s final dividend for the year ending March 2026.
The Sh204.3 billion deal has seen Vodacom’s stake in Safaricom rise to 55 percent from 40 percent, while that of the State drops to 20 percent from 35 percent. The Vodacom purchase was also announced in December 2025—two weeks before the Diageo transaction was announced— and was concluded on June 30, 2026.
Safaricom announced a final dividend of Sh1.15 per share, resulting in a full-year payout of Sh2 per share when added to the interim dividend of Sh0.85 per share distributed earlier in April.
The book closure date for the final dividend was August 4, meaning that Vodacom will be the one banking the Sh6.9 billion payout accruing to the 15 percent stake it bought from the government.
In the year to March 2025, Safaricom had paid a dividend of Sh1.20 per share or Sh48.08 in total, out of which the Treasury earned Sh16.83 billion from its 35 percent stake at the time.
