Hemas Holdings is entering East Africa through Twiga, the Kenyan company behind the Kasuku brand. Ashish Chandra, Group Chief Executive Officer of Hemas Holdings; Rizny Faisal, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer of Hemas Holdings; Asitha Samaraweera, Managing Director of Hemas International; and Sabrina Esufally, Executive Director of Hemas Holdings and Managing Director of Hemas Consumer Brands, spoke to Echelon to describe why they see Kenya as the base for a wider push.
Chandra says the immediate priority is to make Kenya a strong and scalable platform, with the aim of a repeatable, profitable model for growth across East Africa. He also points to the value of pairing Twiga with Atlas, a leading Sri Lankan stationery and school supply brand. By 2030, he expects a much larger share of revenue to come from outside Sri Lanka, backed by a stronger presence in selected East African and South Asian markets. The group will maintain Sri Lanka as its home and largest market as it follows its expansion strategy.
Why East Africa, and why is now the right moment for Hemas to make this strategic leap?
Rizny Faisal: Three things came together. The market: East Africa is one of the largest under-served consumer opportunities anywhere, with a young population (median age around 20 in Kenya), rising urbanisation, and increasing spending power. In many markets the median age is around 20 years. The fit: it is won through brand trust, traditional trade networks, and distribution excellence, the same strengths we have built in Sri Lanka over decades. And our position: we are expanding from a position of strength, with resilient businesses, a disciplined balance sheet, and a long-term approach to capital allocation. Twiga, a brand Kenyans have grown up with, gives us a strong local platform and trusted customer relationships.
Why is “Developing-Market-to-Developing-Market” (South-South) M&A the future for emerging market corporates seeking resilience?
Faisal: It’s because we have already been tested in the conditions that matter. Businesses in countries like Sri Lanka have learned to operate through currency volatility, inflationary cycles, fragmented retail structures, and rapidly changing consumer behaviour, most recently through one of the most severe economic crises any market has seen. That experience travels to Nairobi better than a playbook written in London or Singapore. We know how to price for a stretched household, run working capital tightly, and serve the corner shop as well as the supermarket. Operating across multiple growth markets also means our earnings do not rise and fall with a single economy’s cycle.. For us, this is about showing that Sri Lankan companies can compete internationally through expertise, leadership, and capital, not just exports.
From a consumer behaviour standpoint, what parallels exist between frontier markets in South Asia and East Africa?
Asitha Samaraweera: Both are education-driven demand markets. In Kenya, as in Sri Lanka, stationery purchasing follows the academic calendar, and the back-to-school window concentrates a large share of annual volume into a few weeks, which rewards manufacturers who control supply-chain timing more than brand spend. Parents in both markets are risk-averse about their children’s education, so a stationery brand earns trust the way a school does, through consistent quality, term after term. Both markets are won at the duka or kiosk, not the supermarket shelf. Twiga also sits inside East Africa’s emerging trade corridors, such as Kenya’s exercise-book trade with Ethiopia under the COMESA/AfCFTA framework. The opportunity is to use Kenya as a regional manufacturing and distribution base, not just to sell in Kenya.
Cross-border M&As often fail during cultural and operational integration. How is Hemas approaching the management of Twiga and its integration into the Group?
Samaraweera: The real integration risk is not culture in the abstract. It is the unglamorous mechanics, such as work permits, local banking relationships, statutory payroll, and tax compliance, and, more than any of that, winning hearts and minds on the ground. Get the mechanics wrong in the first 90 days and no strategy will survive contact with the real world. Get the hearts and minds wrong and none of the mechanics will matter. Kenyan leadership owns retailer relationships, hiring, and day-to-day commercial decisions. Hemas brings financial discipline, quality standards, capital allocation, and the values and sense of purpose that have carried our brands for decades. The deal’s governance draws clear lines between Sri Lankan strategic oversight and Kenyan operational authority.
How do the capabilities of Hemas and Twiga complement each other, and what will the operational model look like?
Samaraweera: Hemas brings manufacturing depth, R&D-led product development, and brand-building discipline. Twiga’s real asset is Kenyan consumer trust, which took decades to build and cannot be bought or replicated quickly. It lives above all in Kasuku, a brand most Kenyans have grown up with. The operating model is not “Colombo runs Nairobi.” Local leadership retains ownership of commercial relationships and market execution, while Hemas adds category and brand strategy, product quality systems, and the financial rigour around working capital and margin that has shaped our FMCG businesses in Sri Lanka.
How does expanding offshore and generating foreign revenue directly benefit Sri Lankan consumers back home?
Sabrina Esufally: Expanding outside Sri Lanka gives us a platform to develop capabilities on a global scale. It increases the resilience of our supply chains, innovation engine, and management teams across borders. We are confident this will improve the long-term sustainability of the business and its ability to serve the Sri Lankan economy.
“The middle-class consumer wants value and aspiration, and we build our brands and products for both. We also see growing demand for products formulated for local conditions, from humidity and pollution to skin and hair type. Middle-class consumers are rejecting one-size-fits-all brands, so much of our innovation focuses on matching the right consumer with the right product.”
Given the recent pressure on domestic household income, how is Hemas recalibrating its product strategy to match shifting middle-class purchasing power?
Esufally: The middle-class consumer wants value and aspiration, and we build our brands and products for both. We also see growing demand for products formulated for local conditions, from humidity and pollution to skin and hair type. Middle-class consumers are rejecting one-size-fits-all brands, so much of our innovation focuses on matching the right consumer with the right product.
What does this international growth mean for domestic shareholders, the CSE, and the broader Sri Lankan corporate sector?
Ashish Chandra: This shows that a Sri Lankan company can take its products, manufacturing expertise, brand-building capabilities, and intellectual capital into larger international markets. For shareholders, the opportunity is threefold: access to larger growth markets, a more geographically diversified earnings base, and reduced dependence on a single economy and currency. The East African Community has a population of more than 330 million, approximately 15 times that of Sri Lanka, so this is an opportunity to enter and develop these markets in a focused and disciplined manner. Expansion creates shareholder value only with sound capital allocation, strong execution, and sustainable returns.
While international expansion accelerates, what is the strategy to deepen Hemas’ core market leadership in Sri Lanka?
Esufally: Internationalisation does not mean stepping away from Sri Lanka. It remains our home, our largest market, and the destination for a major share of our investment. In healthcare, eighteen per cent of the population is aged 60 or above, roughly one in three adults has raised blood pressure, and diabetes prevalence among people aged 30 and above is estimated at close to one-third. As an integrated healthcare group, we can expand local pharmaceutical manufacturing, strengthen tertiary care and diagnostics, improve access, and build stronger science-based capabilities. In Consumer Brands, feminine hygiene, baby care, beauty, wellbeing, and nutrition remain underpenetrated, and we will address them through relevant innovation and stronger local manufacturing. In Mobility, we will strengthen existing businesses while developing adjacent capabilities that support Sri Lanka’s position as a regional trade and logistics hub.
What will Hemas Holdings look like in 2030?
Chandra: By 2030, Hemas will be a bigger, better, and bolder Sri Lankan multinational, deeply rooted at home and increasingly relevant in selected international markets. We want stronger market-leading businesses, a more balanced and resilient earnings base, and capabilities that can travel across borders. Sri Lanka will remain at the heart of Hemas, while a significantly higher share of revenue will come from outside the country, supported by a stronger presence in selected markets across East Africa and South Asia.
How will you measure the success of the East Africa expansion over the next 24 to 36 months?
Chandra: We will not measure success by how quickly we expand our footprint. Over the next 24 to 36 months, it means four things. First, a smooth integration that retains Twiga’s local strengths, talent, brands, and market relationships. Second, sustainable revenue and earnings growth. Third, tangible value from combining Twiga’s local market knowledge and distribution strength with the product, manufacturing, and innovation capabilities of Atlas. Fourth, carefully selected expansion of distribution beyond Kenya and into attractive adjacent categories. The objective is a repeatable and profitable model for long-term growth across East Africa, not expansion for its own sake.
As Hemas transforms into a global player, how will you ensure the company remains rooted in its Sri Lankan heritage and grassroots consumer connection?
Esufally: Sri Lanka is home for Hemas, and we will continue to invest and grow here. Our success has been built on understanding the Sri Lankan consumer and innovating for her needs. As we grow globally, we will keep deepening that understanding and building products that solve everyday problems for the Sri Lankan consumer.