White nights turn golden

According to research by St. Petersburg’s Gortis market research company, consumption of beer in St. Petersburg has increased to 80 litres per capita in 2002 from 31.5 litres per person aged 15 years and older in 1997. However, the percentage of locals who drink beer has not changed over the past six years. It’s still only 50 percent of the population that drink beer, which brings de-facto beer consumption to rather high levels. Locals also vary in their brand preferences thanks to the launch of new beer brands. Baltika Brewery (BBH) lost its leading position with figures falling from 40 percent in 1997 to 23 percent last year according to Gortis. Stepan Razin had 20 percent of the local market, a decline from 37 percent in 1999..

Seen the light

There’s only one way for SABMiller to narrow the gap to Romania’s leading brewer Heineken and that is: buy market share. SABMiller announced that it has bought Romanian brewing company Aurora S.A. ("Aurora"), which will raise its market share to 20 percent. The acquisition is conditional upon Romanian Competition Council approval and the fulfilment of certain technical requirements.
Aurora has one brewery (cap. 680,000 hl) which is located in the city of Brasov in central Romania. Although Aurora has national market share of 5.2 percent, its brands have a predominantly regional presence. The Romanian beer market grew 12 percent to 12.8 million hl in 2003. Aurora’s beer sales in 2003 were 659,000 hl. SABMiller said that the value of the net assets is approximately USD16.0 times..

All going according to plan...

...even if it means: lower net profit for the full year before amortisation of goodwill. Heineken’s Chief Financial Officer Rene Hooft Graafland told the media that net profit would fall due to the effect of a weak dollar while Heineken would also start amortising goodwill.
Analysts expect a net profit in 2004 of around EUR780 million, rising to EUR825 million in 2005 and EUR900 million in 2006 on sales of EUR10.2 billion in 2004, EUR10.6 billion in 2005 and EUR10.8 billion in 2006.
Heineken, which reported flat 2003 profits of EUR798 million, warned in February that the weak dollar would take EUR85 million out of 2004 earnings, despite organic growth.
The CFO forecast Heineken’s total net debt would rise to EUR3.0 billion at the end 2004 from EUR2..

No drink for Michael Power

Remember Michael Power, Guinness’ African advertising icon (Brauwelt passim)? Under Ireland’s proposed new advertising code for the drinks industry, which will seek to ensure that alcohol is marketed and sold in a socially responsible way, he will be a "no-no" unless he goes for a name change. Power and what it alludes to have become taboo. Under the terms of the Code of Practice for "Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society" (Meas), reports Martin Information, London, drinks companies will be monitored to ensure their advertising does not claim that their products create sexual prowess or sporting success....

Drink - the new tobacco?

The government stepped back from compulsion in its war on binge-drinking and alcohol-fuelled violence, but made it clear that harsher rules would be bought in if co-operation did not work. According to Martin Information, London, strategic leaks prior to the publication of the government’s alcohol action plan suggested that some members of the government thought that the plan was not far-reaching enough and demanded powers such as the right to fix the prices of alcoholic drinks in city centres and a compulsory annual levy on pubs and clubs of an average GBP10 000 a year each to pay for extra police officers....

It’s the economy, stupid

For the full year ended 31 December 2003, SUN Interbrew (in which Interbrew has a 64 percent economic interest) reported beer volume growth of 33.2 percent compared to an overall market growth of 7.4 percent. In 2003 SUN Interbrew sold 10.8 million hl of beer (2002: 8.1 m hl) in Russia. In the Ukraine beer volumes were up 20 percent to 5.3 million hl; sales of soft drinks went up by 8.8 percent to reach 1.2 million hl. SUN Interbrew said that volume growth had been stimulated by packaging initiatives (i.e. PET) and commercial incentives (i.e. promotions)....

Famous last words

We discovered that our strategies and values were well suited to each other, fell in love and got married," said Flemming Lindeløv, President and CEO of Carlsberg Breweries, referring to Carlsberg and Orkla, which in 2000 merged their beverage businesses to form one of the biggest brewery groups in the world. That was four years ago. Today, Lindeløv is gone and the match which was made in heaven, has come to an acrimonious and very mundane end. In February Orkla announced that it would pull out of Carlsberg Breweries, selling its 40 percent stake to the majority shareholder Carlsberg AS for NOK17.5 billion or USD2.5 billion. That put a close to months of dispute between Orkla and Carlsberg’s majority owner, the Carlsberg Foundation. ...

Alles klar

Germany’s competition watch-dog voiced no objections and so the sale of Brau & Brunnen, one of Germany’s largest brewing groups group to Germany’s food and drinks concern Dr Oetker will go ahead as planned. Dr. Oetker has bought 61 percent of the shares for EUR220 million which were held by the HypoVereinsbank. The acquisition makes Dr. Oetker the major brewer in Germany ahead of Interbrew. Dr. Oetker already possesses a large beer portfolio as represented by its Radeberger Group. Brau & Brunnen and Radeberger group are to be kept as separate entities for the time being under the Dr. Oetker umbrella.

Seeking refuge in a tax haven

Interbrew has admitted that it may move its legal home to Luxembourg for tax purposes after its tie-up with the Brazilian giant AmBev. Its headquarters, however, were to remain in Leuven, near Brussels, where it is due to move into new offices. The move would be politically controversial. After all, Jean-Luc Dehaene, the former Belgian prime minister, is a non-executive director of the brewing company and the family shareholders represent the so-called pillars of society. Interbrew’s EUR9.2 billion deal with AmBev is expected to be completed in the autumn.

The vagaries of foreign exchange

Why didn’t anybody tell them that they’d better release figures that are consistent? Take Interbrew’s results 2003. The 2002 base figures in the press release are not the same given in the presentation to analysts. According to the latter, Interbrew’s EBITDA in 2003 grew 0.8 percent to EUR1.5 billion, EBIT 0.4 percent to EUR839 million. Had it not been for a foreign exchange impact of EUR548 million, net turnover would have risen higher than just 0.7 percent to EUR7 billion. In Western Europe EBITDA was up by 7.6 percent thanks to strong mainstream brands such as Jupiler in Belgium and Hasseröder in Germany. The Beck’s family of brands grew by 11.5 percent in Germany. Meanwhile Stella Artois continued its strong performance in the UK premium segment with volume growth of 12.1 percent. ...