InBev announced in a press release on July 7 that it will file a preliminary consent solicitation statement with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission seeking to remove each member of the board of directors of Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. and provide Anheuser-Busch shareholders an opportunity to have a direct voice in the proposed combination with InBev.

The highly-qualified slate of directors proposed by InBev is composed of Marjorie L. Bowen, Adolphus A. Busch IV, G. Peter D’Aloia, Ronald W. Dollens, James E. Healey, John N. Lilly, Allan Z. Loren, Ernest Mario, Henry A. McKinnell, Paul M. Meister, William T. Vinson, Lawrence Keith Wimbush and Larry D. Yost.

On June 11, 2008, InBev announced a proposal for a friendly combination to create the world’s leading beer company through an acquisition of all the outstanding common shares of Anheuser-Busch at $65 per share in cash, representing an immediate premium of 35% over the unaffected share price and a premium of 18% over the previous all-time high in October, 2002.

Carlos Brito, Chief Executive Officer of InBev, said: “Our strong preference remains to enter into a constructive dialogue with Anheuser-Busch to achieve a friendly combination that comprehensively addresses the interests of all constituents. ...More Info

Anheuser-Busch claims that Belgian brewer InBev's unsolicited takeover bid isn't just bad for the bottom line, but is an "illegal scheme" that threatens to defraud Anheuser-Busch shareholders if a federal judge doesn't step in, The Associated Press communicated on July 9.

Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. made the claim in a lawsuit filed late Monday, July 7, just hours after InBev SA filed its own motion seeking to oust Anheuser-Busch's board of directors. The lawsuit, filed in St. Louis federal court, claims that InBev is deceiving Anheuser-Busch shareholders about the company's $46 billion takeover bid by concealing a number of facts.

The suit says InBev doesn't have the solid financing to underwrite the deal, as the company claims, and that it has not disclosed that it operates a brewery in Cuba, which could complicate its efforts to operate in the United States.

"Anheuser-Busch is asking the court to prevent InBev from taking any further steps to solicit Anheuser-Busch's shareholders until it provides full and accurate information concerning its proposal," Gary Rutledge, Anheuser-Busch's vice president of legal and government affairs said in a statement Tuesday.

InBev did not return a message seeking comment Tuesday. But the company did make a public appeal for support of its bid ...More Info

Czech brewery Budejovicky Budvar NP said on July 3rd it had registered its trademark in Hong Kong after its rival, U.S.-based Anheuser-Busch, withdrew its objections, The Associated Press posted.

Budvar said in a statement it first applied for the "Budejovicky Budvar" trademark at Hong Kong's Trade Mark Registry office in 1997, but Anheuser-Busch objected, arguing it could be confused with its "Bud" and "Budweiser" trademarks registered in Hong Kong.

Budvar said the trademark was registered earlier this year after Anheuser-Busch withdrew its objections. It gave no details. There was no immediate reaction from Anheuser-Busch.

Budvar said it expected the registration would help to boost sales. It has imported its lager to Hong Kong since the 1990s, it said.

Budvar has fought with U.S.-based beer giant Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. in a number of countries over use of the famous Budweiser brand, to which both companies claim a historical right.

Budvar, which exported its beer to 53 countries last year, entered the Chinese market this year, two years after it had its trademark registered in China despite a legal challenge from Anheuser-Busch.

Dutch brewer Heineken plans to restate accounts for its newly acquired Scottish & Newcastle (S&N), a spokeswoman said on July 7, partially confirming a report in Britain's Sunday Telegraph, according to Reuters.

"We are assessing the assets we have bought and we are putting them in light of our own approach to reporting and accounting," the spokeswoman said, adding the firm was aiming to inform the market of any relevant changes at the end of August.

Shares in the world's third largest brewer slipped more than 3 percent on Monday following the report over the weekend, but some analysts did not expect a restatement to have any major impact on the company's overall results.

"It's not such a drama in itself," said Petercam analyst Kris Kippers. "If you look at S&N, it doesn't weigh out that much for the total company so it will probably only have an effect of about 2 or 3 percent on the overall numbers."

"It's better for Heineken to do it now than do it within six or 12 months."

The Sunday Telegraph reported the firm is set to restate profit for S&N by as much as 10 percent after finding discrepancies in its accounts, citing analysts.

Heineken's spokeswoman would not ...More Info

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (“EBRD”) has closed a syndication loan (the “Loan”) of 40.0 million USD for Efes Karaganda Brewery JSC (“Efes Kazakhstan” or the “Company”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Efes Breweries International N.V. (“EBI”) to increase the Company’s brewing capacity, allowing it to expand its presence in the market and to enable Efes Kazakhstan to keep-up with the rapidly growing demand in the country, the company announced on July 4th.

The Loan consists of an A loan, provided by EBRD and a B loan, provided by participants tothe syndication, in the amount of 16 million USD and 24 million USD, respectively and has a maturity of 6 years.

The Loan will allow Efes Kazakhstan to expand its brewing capacity to 2.9 million hectolitres from its current 2.1 million hectolitres and further develop the Company’s warehousing and distribution infrastructure.

The EBRD and EBI have been strategic partners since 1997. The EBRD has played a key role in funding the growth of EBI’s operations in Kazakhstan when the Bank financed the Company’s construction of a green-field plant in Almaty in 2001.

Efes Kazakhstan, founded in 1996, is the second largest brewer of Kazakhstan with 26%market share (AC Nielsen, March 2008) The ...More Info

The United Breweries Group (UB) intends to invest Rs 1,000 crore in three years to hike its brewing capacity by about 20%. "The United Breweries Group has a capital expenditure plan of Rs 488 crore for the current financial year.

This is part of a capacity expansion programme, which commenced in April 2006 and involves a total expenditure of around Rs 1,000 crore over three years," according to UB Group Chief Financial Officer Ravi Nedungadi.

"The expansion would be partly funded by the recently concluded rights issue of Rs 425 crore and the remaining through a combination of internal accruals and debt."

The UB Group has a brewing capacity of 60.25 lakh hecto litres per annum and proposes to expand to 71.50 lakh hecto litres per annum in the next two years.

UB is setting up a facility in Andhra Pradesh. This will have an annual production capacity of 60 lakh cases per annum to begin with and 120 lakh cases eventually. The company also plans to have a greenfield plant in Karnataka with a capacity of 30 lakh cases a year. The Press Trust of India quoted Ravi Nedungadi, CFO of the United Breweries Group, as saying: "The ...More Info

Beer sales advanced by only 5% in the first four months of this year against the same period of 2007, with last year's performance, a 27% increase, not being repeated this year, Ziarul Financiar communicated.

Thus, 2008 is the first year after 2005 when brewers see a growth rate of below 10% in January-April period and particularly a decline in January, of around 12%.

The figures, however, can be explained, and were even anticipated by producers, given that the high temperatures seen in the first half of 2007 were not registered this year. The low temperatures and rainy weather of the first few months are thus a reason brewers blame for the low growth pace of the market.

"Because of the rainy weather, sales at outdoor restaurants and bars stagnated compared with last year, while retail sales rose by 30-40% in the first half of this year. The market resumed its upward trend in the last half of June, but everything depends on this summer's weather," stated Shachar Shaine, chairman of the Romania's Brewers Association and chairman of United Romanian Breweries Bereprod, Tuborg brand producer.

While URBB posted a 15% advance in overall beer sales this June, below the 20% initial estimate ...More Info

Malt export licence bookings in the EU until June 24 are 1.8 mln tonnes, only 50,000 tons more than the total of last year and far below the numbers of former years, market analysts commented on June 27.

They said it is not certain, whether the EU Commission will issue a new and final figure this week. As of July 1 exporters must not book licences for export shipments any more.

As the barley crop prospects have deteriorated in Australia, Canada, North Africa and the Middle East, the IGC world crop figure for 2008/2009 has been reduced by 2 million tonnes to 145.6 million tonnes, still 10 million tonnes better than last year.

The improved prospects are in the EU, Ukraine and the United States.

In the European Union, the production forecast is lifted by 0.3m. tons, to 61.5m. (57.5m.). Persistent dryness reduced yield potential in parts of northern Europe, notably in Denmark, Finland, Germany and Poland. In contrast, ample moisture supplies boosted yields in Spain, where the crop estimate is raised by 0.9m. tons, to 9.9m., but still falling short of last year’s record 11.4m. In France, production is expected to increase to 11.4m. tons (9.5m) as yields recover from the poor results in the previous season.

With spring planting completed in Russia, weather conditions were mostly favourable for the crop. Barley production is forecast to increase by 15%, to 18.0m. tons (15.6m.), unchanged from May. The production estimate for Ukraine, where harvesting commenced in southern growing regions with higher than anticipated yields, is lifted by some 0.5m. tons, to 10.0m. (6.7m.).

World trade forecasts are 16,3 Mill. tons by the IGC, but ...More Info

Argentina had been hit by a bad drought, which prevented barley planting at the optimal time. The widely reported farmers strike also made timely seed deliveries to the farmers impossible.

Meantime local rainfalls and the end or a pause of the farmers strike have alleviated the situation. But forecasts of plantings and the barley crop differ by wide margins, a crop figure between 1 and 2 million tonnes is forecast.

As local Argentine malting barley demand is 1 million tonnes, and Brazil is used to imports of several 100,000 tonnes from Argentina (with the Mercosur preference of zero import tax), any crop failure could have bad consequences for the whole Continent.

Tomáš Brányik, António A. Vicente, Pavel Dostálek and José A. Teixeira

Abstract

J. Inst. Brew. 114(1), 3-13, 2008 The attractive prospect of a continuous beer fermentation system consists mostly of the accelerated transformation of wort into beer. Although continuous beer fermentation has been studied as a promising technology for several decades, the number of industrial applications is still limited. The major obstacle hindering the extensive industrial exploitation of this technology is the difficulty in achieving the correct balance of sensory compounds in the short time typical for continuous systems. This paper offers an integral view on the particularities of continuous systems, which may impart beer a sensorial character distinct from conventionally fermented counterparts. The main groups of flavour active compounds are discussed from the perspective of possible control strategies by means of process parameters and strain selection ... Load full article, 6 pages, 456 Kb, PDF file