The ACCC has refused MicroStar Logistics’ proposed acquisition of assets from collapsed keg pooling operator, Konvoy, ruling for a second time that combining Australia’s only two keg pooling providers would substantially lessen competition. MicroStar operates in Australia as Kegstar.
The determination leaves Konvoy’s receivers without their selected buyer and the business, in receivership since March 2025, facing either an alternate purchaser or liquidation of its keg fleet.
Kegstar and Konvoy are Australia’s only suppliers of keg pooling services, which allow brewers to rent kegs on a short-term basis to supply draught product to licensed venues. The pooling operator then organises collection of the empties from those venues.
ACCC commissioner, Dr Philip Williams, said, “We found that MicroStar acquiring the assets of Konvoy, the only other provider of keg pooling services in Australia, would be likely to substantially lessen competition.
“Without competitors, MicroStar could increase prices above a competitive level and reduce services or quality of service for customers, in particular independent brewers,” Williams said.
No fallback for small brewers
The ACCC rejected the argument that brewers could simply buy their own kegs. It found self-supply is not a viable alternative to pooling, particularly where kegs from small breweries have to be retrieved from venues a long way from the brewery. Retrieval logistics, not the capital cost of the kegs, is the barrier.
The regulator also found there was not a sufficient likelihood of a new competitor entering in a timely and sufficient way to constrain MicroStar on price or service quality after the acquisition.
Two attempts, two regimes
This was MicroStar’s second run at the transaction and its second refusal.
Kegstar signed an asset sale agreement with Konvoy’s receivers in June 2025 and sought informal merger clearance the same month. The ACCC issued a statement of issues in August 2025 and announced its opposition under the informal regime in October 2025.
MicroStar then notified the acquisition again in February 2026, this time under the mandatory merger regime that took effect on 1 January 2026, and the ACCC moved the matter to a Phase 2 review.
Under the mandatory regime, notifiable acquisitions cannot complete without ACCC approval. Phase 1 runs up to 30 business days and Phase 2 up to 90. Only a small number of transactions have gone to Phase 2 since the regime commenced, making this determination one of the earliest substantive tests of how the ACCC will handle a failing-firm argument under the new law.
New Zealand’s Commerce Commission separately opposed MicroStar’s bid for Konvoy’s New Zealand assets in April 2025.
How the duopoly formed
The two businesses share a founder. Adam Trippe-Smith started Kegstar in 2012 offering keg leasing, sold it to Brambles in 2015, and after leaving, founded Konvoy in 2019 offering keg pooling. Kegstar began offering pooling services soon after Konvoy entered. MicroStar bought Kegstar from Brambles in 2021, taking the US operator into the Australian market.
MicroStar is incorporated in the US, indirectly wholly owned by MStar Holding Corporation, and is the largest independent keg services company in that market with operations across the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Konvoy runs a broader offer than pooling alone, adding longer-term leasing plus keg maintenance and repair across Australia and New Zealand, along with its Katch tracking technology.
What happens to Konvoy
FTI Consulting was appointed administrator and McGrathNicol receiver on 11 March 2025, after the company’s lender withdrew funding. McGrathNicol ran a sales process during 2025 and selected MicroStar. Konvoy is now subject to a deed of company arrangement and has continued to trade under the receivers, with supply to customers unchanged through the review.
The ACCC has left the door open on the outcome. “While recognising that Konvoy’s assets may ultimately be liquidated, our assessment showed that there is a real prospect of the business being acquired by an alternate buyer and continuing under new ownership,” Williams said.
In opposing the earlier informal application, the regulator made the further point that even in a liquidation the kegs would likely stay in the market and be available to new entrants or to brewers directly.
What it means for beverage manufacturers
For brewers, keg pooling is an operating cost line rather than a capital one, which is precisely why the ACCC treated pooling and ownership as separate markets. A pooling brewer pays per fill and carries no fleet on its balance sheet. Moving to self-supply means funding a keg fleet and building a retrieval capability, a shift that small independents are poorly placed to fund in current trading conditions.
The unresolved risk is supply continuity rather than price. Kegstar warned when the first decision landed that a blocked sale raised the prospect of Konvoy’s assets being broken up and sold to multiple parties. If the fleet is dispersed through liquidation rather than transferred to a single operator, brewers currently on Konvoy contracts face a transition with no guarantee that a second pooling operator emerges at scale on the other side.
Kegstar has previously said its parent continues to invest in tens of thousands of new kegs for the Australian market.
