Besides his life in public service, Jeremiah Kiereini has been in the corporate world where he built his fortune.
His first investment in the private sector was the acquisition of a significant stake in Unga Group.
He had got wind of the sale from former Central Bank of Kenya Governor Philip Ndegwa, the late patriarch of the family.
Mr Ndegwa, an economist, had alerted him of an investor who was seeking to dispose of his Unga shares. Mr Kiereini used a quarter of his lump-sum pension from the government — he retired in May 1985 — to fund the investment.
It was after he left public service that he was appointed chairman of CMC. The government was then a significant shareholder.
Mr Kiereini then started accumulating shares in the company through his investment vehicle Kingsway Nominees.
Although he is a household name thanks to his time at the helm of East Africa Breweries Limited, Mr Kiereini hardly says much of his reign in his book. Only that the beer wars between EABL and South African Breweries (SAB) led to a fallout between him and businessman Njenga Karume, a top distributor of EABL’s products in Nairobi and Kiambu at the time.
Despite the cost, the episode proved beneficial to EABL by ending its lethargic streak that had been bred by a near-monopoly status, he says.
Despite his multi-billion-shilling fortune, Mr Kiereini still considered himself wealthy.
However, he says he is not among the poor either, alluding to the long-observed hedonistic treadmill effect (The tendency of a person to remain at a relatively stable level of happiness despite a change in fortune or the achievement of major goals).
In his book,he lists a double exhaust Mercedes 450 SLC sports car bought in 1978 for Sh680,000 as one of his most prized possessions. He says he laughs when he thinks of the hubris and snootiness of those days as they discriminated against anyone with a single exhaust car.
Another of his possessions is the 850-acre Kiambu farm (Gitamuri Farm), which he bought from a Greek family in 1974 for Sh5 million.
He passed away on Monday night aged 90 years.
Former head of Public Service and ex-EABL chairman Jeremiah Kiereini passes on at the age of 90. More details to follow on #TheDailyBrief. pic.twitter.com/72Yi4ztlrD
— K24 TV (@K24Tv) May 14, 2019