After months of rumour, Interbrew finally announced on 25 May that it completed the acquisition of Whitbread PLC’s brewing business for £400 million (US$602 million). Thus Interbrew has regained full control of its Stella Artois brand which has been brewed in the UK by Whitbread Brewing since 1976. Following this transaction, Interbrew’s market share in the UK will be 10%. Whitbread is the third largest brewer in the UK with a turnover of £1.1 billion for the year ended 4 March 2000. It owns three breweries and employs 3,900 people. In addition to Stella Artois, the brand portfolio includes Boddintons, Murphy’s and Heine-ken, the latter being brewed by Whitbread under licence. The current transaction does not include the Heineken licence agreement which will be retained by Whitbread Plc..

Last year, Spanish brewers increased their output 3.5%, placing the country third in Production was 25.8 million hl beer worth US$2 billion according to the brewers’ association Cerveceros de España. There were ten brewing groups employing 8,500 people in 22 breweries. Turnover was Ptas 355.3 billion (US$2.05 billion). Exports for 1999 rose 13% on the previous year. After having bought out Grupo Cruzcampo Heineken now dominates the market. This year Mahou, Spain’s second-largest brewer, signed a contract with Carls-berg to brew, market and distribute the Danish brewer’s beer. Mahou has received the rights to the Carlsberg brand from Grupo Cruzcampo.

Watch out for brewers strutting their stuff at the 36th Beer & Flowers festival in the small Slovenian town of Lasko. From 12 - 16 July, 2000 more than 120,000 beer-loving garden enthusiasts will come to Lasko for beer, botanics and bottoms-up, the highlight of the festival being the beer and flowers parade. The event is sponsored by Pivovarna Lasko (1.1 million hl) which holds a 52% share in the Slovenian beer market and posted 15.79 billion tolars (US$72.3 million) in turnover for 1999, up 1% from the previous year. Net operating profit was 1.36 billion tolars, an increase of 4% over 1998. Exports were 24%, the majority of which went to Italy and the states of the former Yugoslavia. For information on the Beer & Flowers festival, visit www.pivo-lasko.si

Baltika’s General Director Taimuraz Bolloyev has been quoted saying that Baltika intends to buy another brewery this year. It already owns controlling stakes in the brewery of the same name in St. Petersburg, Baltika-Don in Rostov-on-Don and Tula Beer near Moscow. Possible regions for an acquisition are the Urals, Siberia, central Asia or Belarus. The capacity of the brewery is supposed to be 1 to 1.5 million hl. The acquisition shall be financed by an additional share issue. Baltika plans to invest US$60 million this year, including US$20 million in Tula Beer and US$18 million in Baltika-Don.

Aiova, a St. Petersburg brewery, has announced plans to open a 350-seat pub and restaurant in Moscow. The brewer’s Tinkoff restaurant will be a replica of the namesake in St. Petersburg which serves about 1,000 guests a weekend. The new venture will be open for business by the end of the year. Aiova intends to invest US$1.5 million in the Moscow restaurant - the same amount it spent on the St. Petersburg location. A location in the capital has not been chosen yet. The brewer is also actively seeking partners for the restaurant venture. To promote the restaurant, Aiova plans to spend US$150,000 this year in both cities.

In 1999, Latvia’s Cesu Alus Brewery posted a loss of 121,077 lats (US$202,000) on a turnover of 970,336 lats and sales of 29,800 hl of beer and soft drinks. The management explained the loss by large investments in marketing and sales. On 27 April construction began for a new 200,000 hl production facility, a two-million-lats investment. Founded in 1590, Cesu Alus is one of the oldest breweries in the Nordic countries. In 1999, the Norwegian-Latvian business development fund sold 33% of voting shares in Cesu Alus to the Estonian A.Le Coq holding company (Tartu Brewery) which in turn is 80% owned by Olvi Oy, the third largest brewer in Finland with a market share of 12% in 1999.

Apparently they did not want to be left out. With the brewing industry consolidating at a fast pace, Joh. Barth & Sohn GmbH & Co. KG and Hopunion Raiser, Scharrer KG, both Nuremberg, decided to merge their domestic and international operations effective of 31 July 2000. The merger will be structured as a mutual cross holdings. Thomas C. Raiser, presently a partner of Hopunion, will join Regine Barth-Daiber, Stephan Barth and Alexander Barth as a shareholder of the new corporation. It will be called Joh. Barth & Sohn GmbH & Co. KG. and will become the largest international hops company. In 1999, Haas/Barth had a share of 29.5% of the international market, Hopunion 10.6%. Together the two companies had a turnover of DM390 million (US$181.4 million) and employed 564 people.

Holsten-Brauerei AG, Germany’s leading brewing group with a market share of 10%, is keen to bring up its share price which has caused the brewer’s market capitalisation to decline from DM390 million in 1998 to DM374 million (US$173.9 million) at the end of 1999. It is significantly lower than Holsten’s fixed assets valued at DM700 million (US$325.6 million). On a turnover of DM1.9 billion (1998: 1.58 billion) Holsten achieved a net profit of 17.75 million (up DM2.3 million) and a net profit margin of 0.93% last year.
Although Holsten has aggressively been pursuing an expansion strategy, recently taking over a majority stake in the König-Brauerei, Duisburg, one of Germany’s top ten brewers, Holsten could itself become the target of a take-over bid..

On 1 June Carlsberg tightened its grip on the Nordic beer market by taking over Orkla’s brewing interests in an all-share deal worth an estimated DKr10 billion (US$1.25 billion). Orkla ASA, one of the leading Norwegian groups with interests ranging from branded goods to media, chemicals and financial investments, and Carlsberg will pool their brewing interests in a new Danish company called Carlsberg Breweries. It will be owned 60% by Carlsberg and 40% by Orkla. The number of employees will be 27,000. Carlsberg Breweries will have a total annual production of about 54 million hl beer, an estimated turnover of DKr23 billion (US$2.9 billion) and an operating profit of DKr2 billion (US$250 million). Last year Carlsberg’s beer activities generated operating revenues of DKr16.6 billion (US$2..

Last year, the Czech Bud-weiser (Budvar) brewery produced almost 1.23 million hl of beer, a 7.6% increase over 1998. Turnover amounted to 2.39 billion Czech crowns (CZK/ 1 EUR = 35.75 CZK). Net profits of about 478 million CZK are anticipated, a 17% increase over the previous year. Beer exports from the brewery dropped 7%. This is mainly attributed to the financial crisis in Russia. In 1999, exports to Germany also dropped 6%, compared to 1998. A total of 491,000 hl were exported to 56 countries worldwide. Budweiser continues to be the No. 1 Czech exporter with a 37% share of total beer exports.