This Nigerian family built an £8 million business importing Lagos-brewed Guinness into Britain

In 1998, Diageo plc needed someone who understood Nigerian Guinness and the British market for it. Kayode Sunday Toyinbo understood both. Diageo appointed his two-year-old company, Kato Enterprises Limited, as the exclusive importer of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout from Nigeria into the United Kingdom. That appointment has held for 28 years. It is the foundation of one of the most quietly significant Nigerian family businesses in Britain.

Toyinbo incorporated Kato on October 1, 1996, from a registered address at Endurance House, 71 Sumner Road, Croydon, Surrey. The company's name is not on any rich list. Its founder does not speak to the press. Its annual accounts are filed under the small companies regime, which means the income statement stays private and the revenue figure never appears in public. What does appear, for anyone who reads the balance sheet filed at Companies House in March 2026, is a business that is growing, profitable, debt-free on its long-term liabilities and worth, by a conservative valuation, up to £8 million.

Toyinbo, born in September 1958 and now 67, has been running Kato alongside his partner Yuk Lynn Mann since the beginning. Mann, born in March 1959, was appointed director on the same day as Toyinbo, October 1, 1996. They are the controlling parties and they own the building. Endurance House, where Kato operates, is a property Toyinbo and Mann own personally. Kato pays them £44,500 a year in rent, confirmed in the related party notes of the latest accounts and unchanged from the year before. The arrangement is legal and common in family businesses. It is also efficient: the founders receive income through the property while the company treats the rent as a business cost.

The business they built

Nigerian Guinness is not Irish Guinness. It is brewed in Lagos to a different recipe, at a higher alcohol content, and it tastes different. The African and Caribbean communities in Britain had been sourcing it informally for years before Diageo formalised the supply chain. When Diageo came looking for an exclusive importer in 1998, they needed a partner with two things: knowledge of the product and knowledge of the community that drinks it. Kato had both.

Guinness Nigeria Plc, the company that brews Nigerian Guinness, was sold by Diageo to Singapore-based Tolaram Group in 2024, with Diageo retaining its global brand licence. The Guinness brand continues to be brewed in Nigeria by Guinness Nigeria Plc under that long-term licence arrangement with Tolaram. The change in brewery ownership has not affected Kato's position as the exclusive UK importer of the product.

By 2012, when Diageo formally announced an expanded distribution partnership with Kato to push Nigerian Guinness and Malta Guinness into mainstream UK retail, the numbers reflected what the community already knew. Nigerian Guinness was in 40 percent value growth in UK independents and 20.5 percent value growth in multiple convenience stores. It held more than 3 percent of the entire UK stout segment. Guy Dodwell, Channel Director for Route to Market and Convenience at Diageo, was quoted publicly at the time confirming the expanded partnership: "Nigerian brewed Guinness and Malta Guinness have seen a strong rise in popularity since they were first introduced in the UK and we are delighted to have Kato Enterprises on board to make them more widely accessible to retailers. With strong expertise in supplying African Caribbean beverages, we are confident Kato will help us grow the variants further." Kayode Toyinbo responded: "Our partnership with Diageo GB has been very rewarding over the years and we are pleased to be able to offer an improved product supply and excellent service to our trade customers."

The brand portfolio grew steadily from that base. Kato is now the exclusive UK importer of Star Lager, Gulder Lager and Maltina from Nigerian Breweries Plc, a Heineken subsidiary. It also imports Tusker Lager from East African Breweries in Kenya. The current portfolio also includes Orijin Bitters, Orijin RTD and Ultimalt. What that means commercially is that a small family business from Croydon holds exclusive UK import licences from two of the three largest brewing groups in the world simultaneously. Diageo on the Guinness brand and Heineken on the Nigerian Breweries portfolio. Those licences are not available to anyone else in the British market.

The family also attempted to build something of their own. In 2016, Kato developed and launched POWA Energy, a cocktail-inspired energy drink positioned as a premium alternative to mainstream energy drinks. Deji Mann-Toyinbo, Toyinbo's son, led the commercial push, telling wholesale trade press that focus group research showed 90 percent of consumers liked the taste and 100 percent would recommend it to a friend. The venture demonstrated ambition beyond import distribution. The core business, built on exclusive brand licences from global brewing giants, remains the commercial engine.

What the accounts say

The financial statements for the year ended June 30, 2025 were signed by Toyinbo on March 3, 2026 and audited by Owadally and King, a Croydon firm of chartered certified accountants. The auditors issued an unqualified opinion, meaning they found nothing wrong with the accounts as presented.

Revenue is not publicly disclosed. But the balance sheet provides enough information to construct a clear picture of what the business is doing. Trade debtors, the money customers owe Kato for goods already delivered, stood at £2,003,740 at the year end, up 34 percent from £1,492,188 the prior year. For a wholesale importer selling to supermarkets, cash and carries and independent retailers on typical 30 to 60 day payment terms, £2 million in outstanding customer invoices at any given point implies annual revenues of between £8 million and £15 million. The midpoint of that range is approximately £10 million to £12 million.

The creditor side confirms the same story from the other direction. Trade creditors, what Kato owes its suppliers for goods received but not yet paid for, rose 58 percent to £1,245,136. When both sides of the ledger grow simultaneously, it means the volume of trade flowing through the business is expanding. Kato is buying more and selling more.

Cash at the bank was £1,996,503 at June 30, 2025, up from £1,114,314 the year before. The cash nearly doubled in 12 months. That single figure is the clearest indication that the business had a strong year operationally. A company generating cash at that rate, while simultaneously growing its debtor and creditor books, is increasing both its revenue and its working capital position in parallel.

Net profit for the year was £202,461, derived from the movement in retained earnings between the opening and closing balance sheet. Retained earnings went from £1,524,638 to £1,727,099. That £202,461 difference is the after-tax profit. It is a thin margin, as is inherent in any import and distribution business operating on licensed brands in a competitive wholesale market. But it is real, it is audited and it is growing. Adding back the £44,500 in rent paid to the directors, which effectively transfers profit to the founders in a different form, normalised profit before those owner-benefits is approximately £247,000.

Net assets stand at £2,227,399, up from £2,024,938 the year before. The company had 12 employees during the year, up from 10. Long-term bank debt has been fully cleared. Two Covid-era government-backed loans remain outstanding: a Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme loan at 8.9 percent interest with £59,634 left and a Recovery Loan at 8.49 percent with £73,449 remaining, both being paid down steadily. The founders are owed £296,725 by the company on an interest-free director loan, down from £318,776 the year before, meaning the company is repaying them as the business generates the cash to do so.

Barclays holds a £640,000 performance bond on behalf of Kato, backed by a cash deposit of the same amount secured against the company's assets. The bonds guarantee Kato's performance under its customer contracts. The fact that Barclays has maintained this facility consistently, and that Toyinbo and Mann have provided personal guarantees of £170,000 secured against their own properties to support it, reflects the bank's confidence in the business and the founders' personal commitment to it.

The succession

The most significant structural development in recent filing history was the simultaneous appointment of three directors on June 1, 2022. Deji Andrew Duggeh Mann-Toyinbo, born January 1989. Dele Anthony Ching Mann-Toyinbo, born January 1985. Denice Nike Dugyinn Mann-Toyinbo, born March 1992. All three are children of Toyinbo and Mann. All three now sit on the board alongside their parents.

The hyphenated surnames carry the weight of two countries and two cultures, Nigerian and Chinese, fused in a family that settled in Croydon and built a business from it over three decades. The next generation did not arrive on the board by accident. All three were appointed on the same day, in a single deliberate succession move that signals the founders are preparing the handover systematically rather than leaving it to chance. That kind of structural planning is how a 30-year-old private company survives into its second generation.

What it is worth

Valuing a private company that does not publish its revenue requires combining what the balance sheet reveals with what the business model implies. Three methodologies applied together produce the range.

The first is the net asset floor. The company's net assets are £2,227,399. This is the minimum, the value if the business were wound up and everything sold. It does not capture the trading relationships, the brand licences or the 30-year track record.

The second is the revenue multiple. UK private distribution businesses in food and beverage trade at 0.3 to 0.8 times annual revenue depending on margin quality and contract security. With estimated revenues of £8 million to £15 million, the revenue multiple range produces a valuation of £2.4 million to £12 million. At the midpoint revenue estimate of £10 million to £12 million and a 0.5 to 0.8 times multiple, the implied valuation is £5 million to £9.6 million.

The third is EBITDA. Adding depreciation of £36,956 to the net profit of £202,461 gives an estimated EBITDA of approximately £239,000 to £247,000. At 4 to 6 times EBITDA, the range is £960,000 to £1.48 million. This is the lowest of the three methodologies and reflects the thin margin inherent in distribution.

What reconciles those three ranges into a single defensible number is the intangible value of the exclusive licence portfolio. Kato holds rights that cannot be replicated. A competitor cannot simply decide to import Nigerian Guinness into the United Kingdom. The exclusive territorial arrangements that Kato has held since 1998 with the Guinness brand, and with Heineken's Nigerian Breweries for Star, Gulder and Maltina, represent an intangible asset that does not appear anywhere on the balance sheet but dominates any realistic assessment of what the business is worth to a strategic buyer.

A larger UK drinks distribution group, a private equity fund targeting the African diaspora consumer market or a brand owner seeking to internalise its UK distribution would not be buying last year's £202,461 profit. They would be buying the only legal route to import Nigerian Guinness, Star Lager, Gulder and Tusker into the United Kingdom. No one else holds those rights. The cost of replicating 28 years of institutional relationships with Diageo, Heineken's Nigerian Breweries and East African Breweries, combined with the regulatory infrastructure, customs approvals and retail partnerships required to distribute at Kato's current volume, would run into millions of pounds and years of lead time.

That intangibles premium pushes the blended valuation toward the upper end of the revenue multiple range. A valuation of up to £8 million for a motivated strategic buyer is defensible. The floor is £2.23 million. The ceiling reflects what those exclusive rights are worth to someone who wants them and cannot get them any other way.

Toyinbo and Mann are not known to be sellers. The children are on the board. The licences are intact. The cash has nearly doubled. And the name on the building at 71 Sumner Road in Croydon remains, after 30 years, exactly what it has always been.

Endurance House.