Diageo Unit FY09 Pretax Income Down 3%

Diageo's East Africa-region brewing arm East African Breweries Limited (EABL) has reported a 3% year-on-year (y-o-y) drop in pre-tax income to KES12bn (US$157.3mn) for the year-ended June 30 2009. Despite 6% turnover growth to KES34.4bn, BMI points out that beer volumes contracted by 4%. A number of factors contrived to work against the brewer, not least its reliance on the slow-growing Kenyan beer industry (in H108 Kenya accounted for 70% of EABL's net sales), which was doubly affected in FY09 by economic weakness and a surge in taxes. After growing by an estimated 1.7% in 2008 (much to do with

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