Anheuser-Busch has already invested about USD 1.3 billion in mainland China, the world’s largest beer market by volume, helping it become Anheuser-Busch’s largest overseas market and fastest growing. Anheuser-Busch has a 27 percent stake in Tsingtao Brewery Co. Ltd., China’s largest brewery. It also bought Wuhan Brewing Co. in 1995 and Harbin Brewery Group, the country’s fifth ranking beer company.

Beer price hike expected in February

As if brewers needed a reason to raise prices on beer. This time Australia’s brewers may have found a new excuse: the poor barley harvest last year.

Seems like we are back in the 1990s: Three Australian craft brewers went public in December as the trend towards expensive beers has reached the stock market. The three craft breweries (Empire Beer, Gage Roads and Oz Brewing) are based in Western Australia and are collectively raising AUD 15 million via initial public offerings.

What will be the new look of business conglomerate San Miguel, having recently sold its entire 65 percent stake in its softdrink arm to joint-venture partner Coca Cola Co?

Investors must have been pleased that shortly before closing time Lion Nathan pulled away from an escalating price war, with a price tag of over AUD 1 billion for the company founded in 1987 by the late Michael Erceg, who died in a plane crash in November 2005. A sale of Independent Liquor has been pending since mid-2006.

If Kirin’s forecast were to materialise, this might be the time to pick up some shares in the brewer.

Although they could have leant back and watched their piles of money grow, Bob Oatley and his family, whose famous Rosemount brand kick-started the Australian wine export boom, and who sold out to Foster’s two years ago, have re-entered the industry – as vintners.

SABMiller’s Chinese venture, in which SABMiller has 49 percent, plans to pay USD 320 million or USD 42 per hl to buy the shares it does not own yet in the leading brewer in China’s Southwest.

Rumours travel faster

According to reports in the Indian media, Anheuser-Busch is planning to enter the local beer market through a joint venture. Anheuser-Busch is expected to roll out its flagship Budweiser and another strong beer in the first half of 2007 in partnership with India’s Crown Breweries from a plant in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul?

Only a few months ago Aussie beer drinkers have been hit with the latest massive price rise on their favourite domestic brews. That was nothing out of the ordinary. New research shows that big beer companies have imposed huge price increases on mainstream beers like VB, Carlton Draught and Tooheys in recent years.