Molson Coors buys Sharp’s Brewery for EUR 23.5 million
A big leap forward? On 2 February 2011 Molson Coors UK, which produces Carling and Grolsch lagers, announced it has bought Sharp’s, the Cornwall-based craft brewery, for GBP 20 million or 12 times profits.
The acquisition is probably not going to consolidate the UK brewing industry in any major way, but it should allow Molson Coors, the UK’s number two brewer with a market share of perhaps 20 percent, to expand its portfolio, which is currently dominated by mainstream lagers.
Sharp’s brewery is best known for its Doom Bar cask ale brand, which in 2010 saw sales increase by 51 percent on 2009, with 95 percent of this business coming from the on-trade.
Founded in 1994 by Bill Sharp and bought in 2003 by Nick Baker and Joe Keohane, the brewery today produces around 70,000 barrels of beer (114,000 hl). That’s not a huge amount of volume, but still an indication that certain brands can grow even in a sluggish or declining market.
The Doom Bar brand has seen particular support from pub company Enterprise Inns, where it has become the second highest-selling cask brand across the group’s 7,000 pubs around the UK.
With over 8.6 million cask beer drinkers in the UK, cask beer currently represents 15.2 percent of the on-trade beer volume, its highest share for over a decade.
Nick Baker, Sharp’s’ Managing Director, was reported as saying that the brewery had worked with Molson Coors for a number of years and recognised it had the “capabilities, comprehensive routes to market and the culture to build on and accelerate the progress the business is making, which is why we are delighted to have done this deal.”
In the year to 31 October 2010, Sharp’s had a turnover of GBP 16.1 million (EUR 18.7 million), up from GBP 11.4 million the year before, while profits came in at GBP 1.63 million, up from GBP 428,000 in 2009, it was reported.
Molson Coors, which originally acquired the Bass brewery in Burton, seems to be branching out further into speciality beers. At the end of last year it launched a GBP 1 million microbrewery in Burton, producing brands such as Worthington’s White Shield.
Last year the brewing company also obtained distribution rights for Corona Extra, the bottled Mexican lager previously handled by Charles Wells, and began brewing and bottling Cobra, the Indian lager, at its Burton headquarters.
