Somaliland Beverage Industries (SBI): the Coca-Cola plant in Hargeisa

The short version

Somaliland Beverage Industries (SBI) is a drinks company headquartered in Hargeisa (Busiweek, archived 2021). In early 2010 it won the licence to build and run a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Somaliland (The Guardian, 20 July 2012). The $17 million plant opened on 22 May 2012, with Somaliland's then president Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud (Silanyo) at the ceremony (Reuters, 23 May 2012). The Guardian called it Somaliland's single biggest investment to that date (same Guardian source).

Its products include Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite and Dasani water, plus its own Lis dairy and Miiran juice brands, with a regional depot in Burao (Wikipedia, Somaliland Beverage Industries). Its official website is under the name Laas Group (Laas Group).

The family and group behind it

SBI was founded by Ahmed Osman Guelleh (Axmed Cismaan Geelle), born in 1959 or 1960, with Mustafe Osman Guelleh as chief executive (Wikipedia, Somaliland Beverage Industries). National Public Radio named Moustapha Guelle and his brothers as the owners (NPR, 28 August 2012). Their father, Osman Guelle Farah, started a business in Djibouti in 1949 and grew it into shipping, construction and property, the OGF group (Financial Times, Coca-Cola boosts Somaliland economy, archived).

Ahmed Osman Guelleh worked at Inchcape Shipping Services in Djibouti, rising from accountant to general manager, before starting his own firms. He held the Coca-Cola franchise for the north around 1985 and lost it when the civil war began; he regained it in late 2010 (same FT source). The Clingendael Institute's 2019 study lists the logistics firms of his GSK Group: Djibouti Container Freight Station, Djibouti Shipping Lines, East Africa Holdings, General Transport Services, Integrated Shipping Services, OGF Shipping, Premier Shipping Agency, Red Sea Express and Three Sixty Stevedoring (Clingendael, Transnational capital in Somalia, June 2019).

The dispute with Djibouti, 2017 to 2019

• In September 2017 Djibouti authorities issued an arrest warrant for Ahmed Osman Guelleh, who was in the UAE and moved to Hargeisa (Horn Diplomat, October 2017; Somali Tribune, 8 October 2017).
• In March 2018 the Djibouti bank BCI Mer Rouge said GSK and Ahmed Osman Guelleh owed it about $20 million, a loan taken to build the Hargeisa Coca-Cola plant (BBC Somali, 9 April 2019).
• In April 2019 the Somali news site Caasimada reported that several of his Djibouti companies, including Three Sixty Stevedoring and Djibouti Container Freight Station, had been handed to relatives of Djibouti's president (Caasimada, 5 April 2019).
• In September 2023 the Madagascar weekly L'Écho du Sud ranked him second among the richest people in Djibouti, at $160 million (L'Écho du Sud, 7 September 2023).

Sources disagree

• Who founded SBI. Wikipedia names Ahmed Osman Guelleh; NPR named Moustapha Guelle and his brothers (Wikipedia; NPR).
• The Mogadishu plant is a different company. A separate Coca-Cola plant in Mogadishu was reopened in 2004 by a company owned by 339 Somali shareholders who raised $8.3 million (StrategyPage, 5 July 2004).

See also Somaliland's economy.