Spreading rumours is a wonderful thing. Especially if rumours contradict each other. Take Foster’s.

Mr Errington said the Foster’s Group would need to take a number of steps to reassure its investors that value could be restored.

On 11 January 2011, Lion Nathan announced its XXXX brewery will donate AUD 180,000 (EUR 131,000) worth of its beer products to hotels and clubs in flood-affected areas and staff would work with publicans to assess damage to beer systems.

After successfully fighting a hostile takeover bid from Lion Nathan in 2005, Mr Cooper said the company’s 129 shareholders are unlikely to be won over by international brewers. “Other brewers can’t justify spending too much on a company like ours, and with due diligence the amount they can reasonably offer isn’t enough to sway the vast majority of our shareholders,” he argued. “Any international players will know what happened in 2005 and that will hopefully deter them from trying to take us on again – it does take up a lot of management time and costs a lot of money to fight them off.”

Foster’s accompanied the Ashes with a series of ads that shows English men ringing two “ordinary” Aussie blokes Brad and Dan for advice on matters such as getting their girlfriends names tattooed.

Constellation’s transaction with CHAMP, which values the entire business at AUD 290 million, includes virtually all of Constellation’s Australian, UK and South African brands, wineries, facilities and vineyards, as well as its 50 percent stake in UK wholesaler Matthew Clark.

It’s an interesting strategy to launch an on-premise brand only. But it makes sense in view of the fact that the two major off-premise chains are competing with each other on price. Major brands get discounted so frequently that brewers have to focus on the on-premise (30 percent of total beer sales, says Foster’s beer unit CUB) if they want to save their bottom lines.

He joined the family-owned Adelaide Coopers brewery as a fourth generation member, having trained as a master brewer in England right after the second world war.

Managing Director Tim Cooper told the media he had noted an industry-wide decline in beer volumes since the second quarter of 2010 but that premium beer was buoyant, with sales of imported, craft and higher-priced beverages – such as the Coopers range – rising 10 percent.

However, the company might have timed the promotion perfectly. Australia’s cricket team has slipped below England’s in the Test rankings and is battling a raft of injuries and poor form ahead of the series.