The world’s largest listed wine company, Treasury Wine Estates (TWE), which is fighting challenges on several fronts, announced on 20 February 2014 that Michael Clarke, 49, will take over the helm on 31 March 2014.

Competition watchdogs on the prowl. In January 2014, the Australian trust-busters launched an investigation into the supply of beer to Australia’s pub industry to find out if brewers are resorting to anti-competitive tactics that lock out rival beer brands.

It served its purpose while SABMiller was in a joint venture with Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA). Now that SABMiller own CUB, the former Australian unit of Foster’s, they decided to close the Bluetongue brewery down. Dozens of workers at this New South Wales brewery are set to lose their jobs, when the plant is shut down by the end of the year, media reported in January 2014.

Suntory Holdings Limited and Beam Inc., Deerfield, jointly announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Suntory will acquire all outstanding shares of Beam for USD 83.50 per share in cash or total consideration of approximately USD 16 billion, including the assumption of Beam’s outstanding net debt. The consideration represents a 25 percent premium to Beam’s closing price of USD 66.97 on January 10, 2014. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2014, subject to Beam stockholders’ approval, regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Those who thought that private equity firms are only good at milking assets need to think again. The private equity outfit KKR, which bought the Oriental Brewery in 2009 from AB-InBev for USD 1.8 billion including debt, recently re-sold it to AB-InBev for USD 5.8 billion. That’s three times the original transaction price. Not bad, eh?

It was a good year to marry into the family that owns Australia’s largest locally owned brewer, Coopers Brewery, Australian media joked in January 2014. Its 143 shareholders were showered with AUD 14.7 million (EUR 9.4 million) in dividends in fiscal 2013 (ending June 2013), making it the biggest pay-out in the brewer’s 150 year history.

Some achievement. Vietnam’s beer production grew faster than the country’s economy in 2013. For the full year, GDP was up 5.42 percent, while beer output rose 7.4 percent to 29 million hl, Vietnamese media report.

Thank heaven, Japan’s brewers are finally showing some sense. The nation’s main brewers are trying to increase sales of premium beer over cheap quasi-beer, after years of focusing on “third-segment” beers, known for their low to no malt contents.

Some say that Jakarta, along with its tropical partner, Bali, has the best nightlife anywhere in Southeast Asia, which seems like an incongruous reputation considering that close to 90 percent of Indonesia’s 250 million people are Muslims, making it by far the world’s largest Muslim population – greater than Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf countries combined.

Though its patience must have been sorely tested, Heineken has emerged as the largest shareholder in United Breweries (UB), after the Dutch picked up a 1.35 percent stake in India’s largest brewing company through deals on the stock exchange in December 2013.