Beck’s brewed in Namibia

Following the joint venture signed between German Brauerei Beck and Namibian Ohlthaver & List Group of Companies, which owns a majority stake in Namibia Breweries Ltd. (NBL), Beck’s has been brewed under licence in Namibia since October 2000. NBL will market and distribute Beck’s in southern Africa. Beck’s was introduced to the southern African market in the 1950s. In 1999, 3,000 hl of Beck’s were sold there. Dieter Ammer, Managing Director of Brauerei Beck, believes that there is a lot of scope for developing the premium brand in the coming years. NBL is the largest importer of beer into the Republic of South Africa.

Diversification next

East African Breweries Ltd. (EABL) plans to float its breweries in Uganda and Tanzania in an effort to generate funds to move into the lucrative spirits market. EABL aims to buy the shares it does not own already in both breweries and then float them on the two countries’ stock markets.
EABL, whose main shareholder is Diageo, controls 64 % of Uganda Breweries Ltd. and through Diageo’s subsidiary Guinness, controls another 30 %. The balance is held by minorities. In Tanzania’s Kibo Breweries, EABL owns 86 % and intends to buy out its partner. Diageo holds 46.7 % of EABL and is expected to raise that shareholding to more than 50 % should the first float - Uganda Breweries Ltd. - go through. EABL is the fourth largest capitalised company on the Nairobi stock exchange..

New brewery

Commissioning of the new Dashen Brewery, Gondar, ended when the first kegs were filled. The brewery is owned by Ethiopian (60 %) and French investors. Danbrew supplied the plant turn-key. The current capacity is 300,000 hl, this can be easily increased to 500,000 hl p.a. by simply adding some more fermenters. The brewery is located in the historical town of Gondar in the north of the country. 170 people are currently employed.
This is the first and only plant in Ethiopia having waste water treatment..

It seems like there will be soon some serious beer action in Africa’s most populous country, where Guinness and Heineken are calling the shots - so far. Guinness, through its 53% stake in Guinness Nigeria, and Heineken, which owns 40% of Nigerian Breweries, control the market. South African Breweries, which sold 25.1 million hl of beer in South Africa, still has no brewing plant in Nigeria but is already exporting beer there from South Africa.
Nigeria was once considered Africa’s most interesting beer market. In the late 1970s, consumption was 12 million hl when the economy prospered thanks to the high oil revenues. In sync with falling oil prices, consumption dropped below 4 million hl in the 1980s. In addition, Heineken plans to buy Con-solidated Breweries Ltd..

New man for Europe

Mike Simms, Chairman of South African Breweries’ soft drinks division, will become Managing Director of SAB Europe. Before he chaired the soft drinks division, Simms spent 12 years in SAB’s South African beer division.

Preparing for the big beer show-down

Namibian Breweries has entered into a joint venture with Beck & Co. Export Brewery of Bremen/Germany. Together, they want to wrestle market shares from the South African South West Breweries brewing giant.
The success of Namibian Breweries (NBL), a publicly quoted company for the last three and a half years, is really impressive. In the 1998/99 fiscal year, turnover (57 million US $) rose 28% compared to the previous year.
The brewery produces 1.4 million hl of beer per annum. NBL has a type of monopoly position in Namibia (91% market share). As the domestic market has only 1.6 million people, it is not large enough to ensure survival of the brewery so that footholds in neighbouring African countries have to be established.
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Brauerei Beck to set up joint venture with Namibian Breweries

Brauerei Beck and Namibian Breweries announced that they will set up a joint venture, with Ohlthaver & List, Namibian Breweries’ parent company, controlling the majority stake. Brauerei Beck’s involvement in southern Africa is to help Namibian Breweries to continue on its fast growth track. Dieter Ammer, Managing Director of Beck, said his company would support Namibian Breweries with capital and know-how. No figures were disclosed. Namibian Breweries will brew and distribute Beck’s under licence. With Beck’s, Namibian Breweries stocks up its portfolio of international premium brands which includes Holsten and Guinness, for the quickly expanding South African premium beer segment.

SAB and Castel enter a joint venture

South African Breweries (SAB) and Castel Group have joined forces to boost their position in the African beverage markets. SAB will take a 20% stake in Castel’s beer division, CBB, and Castel will buy 38% of SAB’s African division, SABI. SABI has transferred US$73m of net assets to Castel and CBB US$64m to SABI. The alliance took effect on 1 April 2001. The alliance makes sense if seen against the partner’s geographical investments. Whereas SABI’s operations are mostly concentrated in southern and east Africa, CBB’s operations are located in west and central Africa. In 2000, Castel had a total beer output of 9.1m hl. For the year ended 31 March 2000, SABI produced 13.9m hl outside South Africa.

New South African drinks giant formed

In March, Distell, the new South African drinks group, launched itself officially by getting listed on the Johannes-burg Stock Exchange’s Security Exchange. This followed the merger of Distiller’s Corporation and Stellenbosch Farmers’ Winery in 2000. Distell claims to be the tenth largest drinks company in the world.
The merger was met with opposition from Bulmer SA and Seagram Africa that tried to stop it through an interdict through the Cape High court. Both parties argue that the merger is notifiable in terms of the Competition’s Act. Distell, on the other hand, insists that the voting pool made up of South African breweries, KWV and Rembrandt, each with a 30% stake in the former companies, exercise the same authority in the new company. Distell has an assets base of R3..

bhayi Brewery opened

Irrespective of a recent decline in beer sales, South African Breweries (SAB) officially opened its new Ibhayi Brewery near Port Elizabeth to the east of Cape Town. It took 18 months and R650m (US$81m) to build the brewery. The brewery which is fully automated, has a production capacity of 2.3m hl annually. It is set in an area of an extremely high unemployment rate.