What’s new

Reform of the UK’s antiquated pub licensing law will be delayed by at least another two years. The first hint came when Tony Blair’s government failed to include the proposal in the Queen’s Speech. The minister for tourism, Dr Kim Howells, has since admitted that a Bill has not even been drafted. Therefore the Queen’s Speech 2003 will be the earliest date for the reform to get a look in. Proposals include the automatic right to a 1am closing time and the transfer of licensing control from magistrates to local authorities. Especially the latter proposal has received loud opposition from pub retailer J D Wetherspoon and the Kent brewer Shepheard Neame. They fear even greater planning hurdles should the government press ahead with this proposal.

Interbrew buys stake in Union Breweries

In October Interbrew entered a strategic partnership with Slovenia’s second largest brewer, Union Breweries. Initially, Interbrew acquired a 21 percent stake in the brewer which controls more than 40 percent of the Slovenian beer market. Both parties agreed that Interbrew would promote the Union brand outside Slovenia.
Soon after, Slovenia’s largest brewer, Pivovarna Lasko, announced that it would outbid Interbrew for its competitor. In July Lasko bought a 25 percent stake in Union Breweries but failed to forge a partnership that would improve the two brewers’ market share throughout former Yugoslavia. Therefore, in November, Interbrew filed a notification with the relevant authorities to launch a public tender offer for all remaining outstanding shares of Union Breweries..

Mix, shake and roll out

Having accustomed ourselves to all those downward pointing arrows - beer consumption going down, beer output going down, number of breweries going down - we never thought that in Germany we would see an upwards pointing arrow again. But lo and behold, there is a positive trend worthwhile entioning: beer mixes are up.
Admittedly, 2 million hl (estimates for 2001) are not much volume to write home about. But it’s a start. Never mind that as a product category beer mixes are old hat. Any publican could do them. All it took was to pour some beer and lemonade into a glass. Even as a packaged product beer mixes have been round for some years now. However, it was only at this year’s anuga, the world’s fair for the food industry, in Cologne, that German brewers declared beer mixes "V trendy".

Aying brewery to conduct regional audit

Protecting the environment and adhering to the principles of sustainability - that is what managing the 90.000 hl brewery at Aying to the southeast of Munich is all about. Perhaps this is also the reason why its owner, Franz Inselkammer, is the first German brewer to initiate a regional audit of his business. He wanted to find out in empirical terms what it means to be a regional brewer.
Since the 1992 Rio Conference and its Agenda 21, we know that sustainability unites economic, social and environmental issues. Aying’s regional audit, which was completed in October, shows that 82% of ist raw materials and utilities are sourced locally, 17,5% in Bavaria. Only 0.5 percent originate in the rest of Germany. Ecologically speaking, Aying is very much focussed on the region south of Munich.

Orkla sells shares in Hartwall

In order to fulfil the Finnish competition authorities’ conditions for approval as concerns the establishment of Carlsberg Breweries, Orkla ASA has sold its 12,535,700 A-shares and 1,500,000 K-shares in Oyj Hartwall Abp. On 19 November, Orkla agreed to sell 1,500,000 K shares, equivalent to 14.5% of the total votes and 2.3% of total share capital in Oyj Hartwall Abp, to Hartwall-Bolagen AB. A day later, Orkla sold its A-shares at a price of 21.2 Euro per share to Nordic and international investors through a book building process. Orkla’s gain from the transaction and the sale was NOR1.35 billion and will be posted in the fourth quarter of 2001.

Satisfying results

They called the results "satisfying". Interesting choice of words. At the end of the third quarter, Carlsberg Breweries’ operating profit amounts to DKK 2.8 billion against DKK 1.8 billion last year (+55%). Growth in volumes also continues. Beer sales rose to 51.5 million hl (+16%) and soft drinks to 10.3 million hl (+25%).
Orkla, the 40% stakeholder in Carlsberg Breweries, reports that on the Nordic markets Carlsberg Breweries witnessed profit growth except in Sweden. This was blamed on the general market trend for beer and the integration process following the merger of Sweden’s brewers Pripps and Falcon into Carlsberg Breweries.
In the UK market the situation continues to be challenging.
In Russia, BBH has managed to increase its market share to 28 percent..

Interbrew on target

Despite the impact of 11 September, Interbrew believes to be on target to achieve its full year growth objectives. For the year 2001 Interbrew aims at an organic EBITDA growth of at least 8 percent and a growth in EPS before goodwill amortisation of at least 12 percent. This optimism is based on trading results for the first nine months of this year. Compared with the period last year and excluding Bass Brewers, both volume and net turnover were up 18 percent and 28 percent respectively. EBITDA grew 12 percent to 924.1 million Euro. Organic growth of operating profit was 14 percent, organic volume growth 2.8 percent. During the first nine months of 2001 Interbrew produced 56.1 million hl of beer and a net turnover of 4.5 billion Euro. Trading in emerging markets, i.e..

Celeste Aida The consolidation of the Italian beer market

What would you call a man whose chat-up line is: "Heavenly Aida, divine vision,/mystic garland of light and flowers,/ you rule my thoughts,/ you are the light of my life./" Would you call him a man of many words? A hopeless romantic? Over the top? Actually, you’d better call him one of the Three Tenors.

Luciano Pavarotti - that’s the bulkiest one of the three with the pitch black beard and the white towel round his neck - has made his fame and fortune being Radames. Just to fill in those of you who’d rather listen to Lionel Richie: Radames is the Egyptian general in the opera "Aida" who has got some of the most beautiful arias of opera history to sing. And some of the most difficult too. Like when the opera begins." Ahhhh. Sigh..... It is as dry as the desert.....
....

Interbrew explores options

Interbrew announced that it was in talks with Union Breweries, the second largest brewer in Slovenia, in order to explore a partnership. According to the Barth Report, Slovenian breweries produced 2.5 million hl of beer in 2000.

Triple blow

The UK’s tourist industry expects that the terrorist atrocities in the US will cost it £1 billion in the final quarter this year. This latest blow will have a deeper effect than even the foot&mouth crisis earlier in the year and the economic slowdown. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that the number of overseas visitors to the UK fell 6% to 16.4 million between January and August. The amount of money spent dropped 10% to £7.8 billion during the first eight months.
Already a war of beliefs is raging in the City of London as to the effects of the economic slowdown on alcohol consumption. While many argue that the pub trade is recession-proof, dissident voices can be heard too that UK-based brewers may not be the safe haven investors are looking.0%, wine by 8..