Coopers sells Adelaide Malting Company

The timing was immaculate. First Coopers built a new brewery, next it got out of malting. In June, the Coopers family and management sold the Adelaide Malting Company, which produces 75,000 tons of malt a year, to the grain handler AusBulk. The price was not disclosed. In 2001, Adelaide Maltings’ turnover had reached A$25 million. AusBulk was quoted as saying that it hoped to double the business by 2007 to produce 150,000 tons of malt. Coopers’ Managing Director Tim Cooper was also quoted as saying that the sale would allow the brewer to focus on its new A$40 million Regency Park brewery. AusBulk is going to go for a stock market floatation sometime this year. The capital-raising target had not been decided yet.

Focus on new plants: Baltika Group, St. Petersburg/Russia New solutions for filtration

Working very closely together as in a partnership, Baltika Brewery St. Petersburg and SeitzSchenk have installed an ultramodern filtration in the brewery utilising proven components. Within the shortest time, equipment has been delivered and installed which, from the very beginning, fulfilled the stringent quality requirements of the brewery and, from a technical and technological standpoint, set a new standard in the Russian brewing sector.

tika and SeitzSchenk began to work together in 1995. At a seminar, the filter supplier became aware of a whole series of problems which the brewery had been having after installing a used kieselguhr filter, type ZHF/S, fabricated in 1970. Baltika was then a medium-sized brewery with an annual output of about 500,000 hl/a.6 h.2 h.1 g/hl, 17....

It’s a kind of magic

Wine writers ... eat out your hearts. Because brewers can do it too - the mumbo jumbo. "Layered prosciutto and gamey wafts over ripe mulberries. Broad-shouldered, too." In case you are wondering - no, we did not make this up. This happens to be winespeak. Open any wine magazine and you are bound to stumble over wine descriptions which are way over the top. In their enthusiasm to share their taste experience with their readers, wine writers often get completely carried away. Hence their predilection for flowery language of the prosciutto-mulberry variety. But there is no denying that these descriptions have an impact on readers and consumers. That’s why brewers have been wondering for some time how to make the most on a label of the stuff that goes into their beers. At 5. Thanks a lot, Max.

Interbrew ties up with Boonrawd

It makes you wonder why Thai beer lovers still have a full mouth of perly whites. After all, Singha beer’s bitterness (40+ BU) is enough to start uncorking most consumers’ molars. But the beer is a speciality and hence a genuine object of desire for Interbrew. In March Interbrew commenced talks with Thailand’s Boonrawd Brewery to create a joint venture later this spring. Interbrew is already present on the Thai market through its Beck’s subsidiary, the Kloster brand. Boonrawd brewery produces the popular Singha and Leo brands.
Despite the Asian crisis in 1997/98, the Thai beer market has grown 13 per cent per annum since 1995. Domestic output was 11.5 million hl in 2000 and beer consumption 18.4 litres in a country of 60 million people.14 billion in 2002 according to Boonrawd’s PR..

In the engine room

It was not that long ago that CUB, Foster’s Australian beer division, used to be the group’s engine room, bringing forth the energy needed to fund Foster’s expansion into the wine industry. How things have changed. Now it’s the Beringer Blass wine division which helped fire up a 20.6 per cent rise in group profit in the six months to 31 December 2001. The AUS$322 million profit was built on a 20.2 per cent increase in revenue to AUS$2.6 billion and a 9.7 per cent rise in earnings per share to 15.9c. The result exceeded expectations. In a flat and mature market, Australian beer sales grew 1.0 per cent to AUS$801 million. However, Foster’s was confident that it would be able to achieve the forecasted 3-4 per cent rise in domestic beer sales for the full year. (Harvey)
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Mid-sized wineries the next target

Mid-sized wine producers have become the latest target in a wave of takeover activity as the mega-mergers between Southcorp and Rosemount Wines, Foster’s Mildara Blass with the US producer Beringer, and Lion Nathan’s takeover of Petaluma and Banksia wines are being integrated. According to Johnson Taylor analyst Mark Topy, the big companies have got their hands full at the moment. "Southcorp will offload some brands, BRL does not need any more brands and Foster’s is focused internationally." But British drinks group Allied Domecq should continue to shop around for an Australian wine producer to complete its Australasian wine portfolio after buying New Zealand’s Montana Wines in 2001. Between 1997 and 2002 the tonnage of wine crushed has doubled from 775 000 tons to 1.4 million tons. 1....

All for one, and one for all Australia’s last family brewer invested US$22 million in a new brewery

It was an upper middle-class idyll. Wide avenues and mighty old piles built in the 1920s with scissors-clipped lawns and tidy flower beds. Into this sylvan enclave snuggled Coopers brewery. If a vintage car came round the corner with the driver wearing goggles and the woman next to him a wide brimmed hat, you would have thought: "Well, I must be Rudolph Valentino".

Even Coopers Brewery, which had been residing in Adelaide’s posh suburb of Leabrook since 1881, did everything to give the impression that time stood still. The white-washed building was kept in good nick as if Coopers, in all modesty and bashfulness, tried to keep it a secret that inside the picturesque ensemble they produced 900.000 hl of wort each year. Tough luck if you happened to be Coopers’ head brewer... Shhhh..

Make the courts solve the mess

Kirin Brewery Company, Japan’s second largest brewer, has been furthering its overseas expansion with a $540 million offer for a 15% stake in Philippine San Miguel Corp. Whether the acquisition goes through depends on the outcome of a court dispute between San Miguel and the Philippine government, which holds in trust a 47% stake in the company.
Currently, 20% is claimed by San Miguel Chairman Eduardo Cojuangco and 27% by coconut farmers and the Philippine Coconut Producers Federation, who claim the shares were illegally purchased using funds seized from coconut farmers during the rule of Ferdinand Marcos. According to media reports, the Philippine government insists that no compromise will be allowed. "No ... the issue remains in court so there is no compromise agreement there..

Carlsberg Asia increases shareholding in Hite Brewery

Carlsberg Asia Ltd. acquired 8.4 per cent of the share capital in Hite Brewery Co. Ltd. for approx. US$ 68 million, thus increasing its shareholding in the major South Korean brewer. According to a company statement, the acquisition strengthens both Carlsberg Asia’s position as one of Asia’s largest brewery groups and the co-operation with the Park family. The Park family has controlled the company since it was founded in 1933.
The total control of the Hite share capital is now just above 25 per cent. As of January 2002, Hite will be consolidated as an associated company. The acquisition is part of Carlsberg Breweries’ strategy to strengthen its position in Asia through the joint venture company Carlsberg Asia. Its three breweries had a beer output of approx. 9.5 million hl in 2001..

Takeover goes flat

Lion Nathan’s A$68 million friendly takeover bid for wine company Banksia Wines went flat as the brewer did not manage to gain full control. Lion Nathan won 85 per cent of Banksia but Allied Domecq holds a 14,97 per cent blocking stake which it does not want to sell. The brewer has had to extend its bid for Banksia twice. Allied Domecq has already indicated that it would not accept an offer because the British drinks group has distribution rights for Banksia brands in New Zealand through its recently acquired Kiwi wine company Montana.