Name: Amos Nzeyi
Source of Wealth: Carbonated Soft Drinks and Water, Hospitality & Tourism, Confectionaries & Real Estate
Age: 75 years
Estimated Worth: US$ 57 million (UGX200 billion)
Amos is a Ugandan businessman, entrepreneur, and industrialist who started business at quite an early age. He has been in business for more than 50 years. Amos was born in 1947 in Kabale in what was then known as the Kigezi region.
His father used to work at the White Horse Inn, the oldest and still one of the best hotels in Kabale, which the businessman has since acquired. He started selling eggs at the age of eight in primary three to contribute to his school fees. But the business did not do well. He then ventured into buns and mandaazi. This worked out.
After his primary seven, he was invited by his brother to join him in Kampala to continue his studies at Kololo High School. He was excited to be coming to Kampala for the first time but that dream did not last long as his brother could not raise the fees.
He turned to selling medicine. At the time, gonorrhoea was very rampant and the need for treatment was highly sought after but there was scarcity of drugs. His cousin had found a black-market supplier of penicillin tablets then known as “double colour” which were used to treat the disease. Amos began hawking them on the streets of Kampala and he made a killing off the medicine.
He then moved to Mbarara Town to work on the Mbarara-Katunguru road construction project as a “spanner boy”. He worked there for three years before he quit to start his own real business.
He started trading in food stuffs from Kinkizi (Kanungu District) to Kabale mainly supplying markets and schools. This launched him into the timber business where he started supplying the National Housing & Construction Company (NHCC) estates, a lucrative venture which helped him make enough money to buy trucks. The government, through the ministry of housing, had empowered NHCC to build different housing estates in prime neighbourhoods in Kampala especially around Ntinda, Bukoto and Kyambogo.
As a young man with some money to spend, he decided to spend on one of his hobbies, motocross. This was in the 1970s when Idi Amin was the president and Uganda was shining in sports. When Uganda hosted the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit, Amin organised a rally around East Africa which Amos won. This did not sit well with the president’s notorious security outfit- the State Research Bureau which prompted him to run to exile in Kenya.
Lucky for him, he had earlier read the situation in the country and had sent his trucks to operate in Kenya. This gave him a safer landing when he was there. He would set up a transport company which grew to a fleet of about 250 trucks. Some he owned, others he hired from other business people.
However, a few years later, his son was diagnosed with cancer that needed to be treated immediately. The only place where that could be done was in the UK and the treatment was to take about two years. To make ends meet, Amos moved the entire family to the UK and while there began buying dilapidated properties which he would renovate and sell at a profit.
He returned to Uganda in 1986 and he soon noticed there was no bread in the country. But while in the UK, he had fallen in love with bread. He loved the idea of seeing the English people carry home bread every day. He bought baking equipment which he set up in Kampala and started Hot Loaf Bakery, the only bakery in town at the time. 30 years later, Hot Loaf remains one of the leading bakers in the country for both bread and confectionaries.
Ugandan enterprises urged to explore regional oil and gas opportunitiesUganda was at the time recovering from war. There was a scarcity of resources among which were the bottle crowns. He set up a crown making plant to cater to, first the beer industries but later on to the other beverages as well. The quality of his crowns was so good that he ended up supplying crowns in the entire region. It was through a visit by one of the Pepsi franchise managers that he was told of the opportunity of being a Pepsi bottler. He took it up.
Beverages
At the time, the government was implementing the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) directive to privatise government parastatals. Amos went for the Lake Victoria Bottling Company. He teamed up with the late Dan Kigozi who was already a bottler. He also invited his friend Chris Kayoboke and the three put up the biggest bid. The trio won the bid to run the then Lake Victoria Bottling Company which they later renamed Crown Bottlers Limited now Crown Beverages Limited (CBL).
In 1997, the owners of Crown Bottlers Limited entered a joint venture with International Pepsi Cola Bottling Investments Limited (IPCBI) from South Africa in which IPCBI acquired 51% shares and assumed management of the company. In October 2001, the Ugandan shareholders acquired 100% of the company.
Today, Nzeyi owns 51% of the business and is the Executive Chairman. The company bottles Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Mirinda, Evervess Tonic, Sting and Nivana Water. CBL has over the last 10 years recovered a good chunk of its lost market share and in 2020 had a turnover of UGX 400 billion (USD 115 million) and a profit of UGX35 billion (USD10 million).
Banking
In 1991, Amoz Nzeyi partnered with friends; Amama Mbabazi, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda and Prof Ezra Suruma to start the Kigezi Bank of Commerce. It was later renamed the National Bank of Commerce. Unfortunately, it was closed in 2012.
He also owns Hot Loaf Bakery Limited- one of Kampala’s oldest bakeries as well as the Palm Valley Golf & Country Club in Bwebajja, off Entebbe Road.
Amos has served on various boards among which include; Uganda Development Bank and the Uganda Manufacturers’ Association.
He is the honorary consul for Mauritius in Kampala, Uganda established in 2018.
In all his work, Amos does not compromise on quality. He always goes for the best. When he was setting up his bottling company, he was advised about treating people well and that has remained a priority. “When you treat people well, they too, in return, treat your business well.” He believes in employing people better than him and the power of delegation.
One of his recent acquisitions is the Pineapple Bay Resort on Bulago Island, a serene and magnificent establishment tacked away on Lake Victoria. The delight with which Amos talks about this high-end resort, it is no guess it has become his second home. He even recently acquired a yacht to facilitate his newly found lifestyle.
He is currently on a millennium project along the Entebbe Express Highway where Crown Beverages has opened a second plant. He believes that money will always come and go. He advises business people to always have fallback assets to help them when times are hard.
