Kirin Holdings Company, Limited (Kirin) announced on April, 23 that it has delivered an indicative proposal to Lion Nathan Limited, a 46.13% owned and affiliated company of the Japanese brewer.

Kirin thus aims to make Lion Nathan a wholly-owned subsidiary by acquiring all the remaining 287,786,220 shares in the Australian brewer (53.87% of the issued and outstanding shares in LN) (hereafter, "Proposal").

Following a request by Lion Nathan, the Australian Securities Exchange and the New Zealand Stock Exchange have both agreed to place the company's shares into a trading halt. The trading halt will last until the earlier of Lion Nathan making an announcement in relation to the Proposal or the commencement of normal trading on the Australian Securities Exchange and the New Zealand Stock Exchange on Monday, 27 April 2009.

The Proposal is currently preliminary, incomplete and non-binding and Proposal terms are indicative only at this stage. The board of Lion Nathan has formed a committee of directors who are independent of Kirin Holdings, to consider its indicative proposal and to conduct discussions and negotiations with Kirin in the interests of the non-Kirin shareholders, Kirin said.

Kirin Holdings has appointed J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank as financial advisers and Blake Dawson as ...More Info

Australian brewer Lion Nathan Ltd posted on April, 24 its preliminary trading results for the six months ended March, 31.

The company’s net profit after tax (NPAT) was up 6.9% to AU$176 mln.

Lion Nathan Australia grew operating EBIT by an impressive 12.7% to AU$280.3 mln. Net sales revenue rose 11.3% in the period and total volumes increased by 4.6%. Gains through core brands and the Boag’s trademark, as well as good tap beer volumes were the key drivers of growth, the brewer said.

Lion Nathan’s Australia sales volume was 406 mln litres (+ 4.6% as compared to the six months ended 31 March 2008). The business’s total tap beer volumes were up 2% on prior year including Boag’s, and almost flat once Boag’s is excluded.

According to the brewer, Boag’s is a key growth driver for its Australian unit and the first half results provide the business with further confidence in the potential for the trademark. Volumes for the Boag’s trademark were up 8% on prior year, and the four key brands within the Boag’s portfolio rose 12%.

The New Zealand business performed well to achieve a 3.1% improvement in EBIT in New Zealand dollars (NZD). With stable domestic beer volumes, the ...More Info

Kirin Holdings Company, Limited announced on April, 23 that it has completed on April, 17 the tender offer period for shares of San Miguel Brewery Inc., launched a month ago.

The Japanese brewer will buy a 5.05% stake in San Miguel Brewery. Initially, it was planning to buy 886.1 million San Miguel Brewery shares, making up a 5.75% of the shares issued, from shareholders other than the Philippine's largest brewery's parent, San Miguel Corp.

The number of shares tendered totalled 778.8 million, or 5.05% of shares outstanding, falling short of the planned amount, but Kirin will buy all these shares tendered for PHP6.89 billion, or Y13.8 billion. Settlement is due to start April 30.

The tender offer is in line with Kirin's planned purchase of up to a 49% stake of issued San Miguel Brewery shares, in a move to beef up the Tokyo-based brewer's presence in Asia and Oceania. San Miguel intends to keep a majority stake of at least 51% in the beer-making unit.

Separate from the tender offer, Kirin in February agreed to buy a 43.25% stake in San Miguel Brewery from San Miguel Corp. for PHP8.841 a share. The transaction is slated to be completed at the end of May.

This ...More Info

Slovenian brewer Pivovarna Lasko announced on April, 24 the intention to sell its entire 99.1% stake in Croatian brewing subsidiary Jadranska pivovara.

The company said it has already started negotiations with potential buyers.

The news comes after Croatian daily Slobodna Dalmacija reported on April 23 that the Slovenian brewer had ordered the liquidation of its Croatian subsidiary.

Grupo Modelo’s decision not to pay dividends to shareholders coupled with changes made to strengthen the best practices of corporate governance might suggest a potential recovery of the equity stake which Anheuser-Busch InBev holds in the Mexican brewer, El Semanario cited Actinver Brokerage House analysts on April, 22.

In a report, the stock broker asks whether the improvement in margins in Grupo Modelo could offset concerns about the conflict between AB and Modelo, especially after the Mexican brewer said it had decided not to pay any dividend.

Thus, Modelo may be paving the way to buy some or all of the 50% stake that AB InBev owns in it, analysts suppose.

Since the Belgian InBev acquired Anheuser-Busch late last year, there have been speculations about the possibility of Grupo Modelo seeking to repurchase the shares sold to Anheuser-Busch in the early 90s, but so far no official comment has been made.

Established in 1925, Grupo Modelo is the leader of Mexico’s beer market. The company owns 8 breweries in Mexico with a total capacity of about 60 mln hl.

Owners of Czech brewer Budejovicky mestansky pivovar (BMP) have put 97% of the company's shares up for sale, Rozhlas posted on April, 21.

The price asked is reportedly CK1.5 bln (US$72 mln).

The management of the brewery does not reveal many details, though, saying that they are just seeking strategic partners.

Speculations have had it that the company, which is more known under the name ‘Samson’, may attract Budweiser Budwar. A representative of the latter, however, denied the fact.

“Given the current economic situation in the Czech Republic and Europe, this investment is inconvenient for us. With regard to publicly available information about BMP’s long-term decline in trade and economic results, the price seems too high,” Budvar spokesman Petr Samec said.

Due to softening in the wheat and corn markets, the malting and feed barley prices have shown a slight decrease as well due to their linkage to those markets, respectively, Marvin Zutz, executive director of the Minnesota Barley Growers Association, was quoted as saying by Farm & Ranch Guide on April, 22.

There is also little happening in the export market to add any strength to the market and uncertainty regarding planting intentions for farmers in the prime barley producing areas is holding market advances down.

The main barley growing area for Minnesota is in the Oslo and Alvarado area, and Zutz noted that at this time the farmers there are suffering severe flooding over much of their land, which is going to delay planting. However, in the region north and east of there, in the Greenbush and Roseau areas, conditions are much drier and farmers could soon be in the field.

The USDA Planting Intentions Report that was issued on March 31 indicated total barley acres in the U.S. would decline by 7 percent in 2009 to 3.9 million acres. If this figure is realized, it would be the third lowest barley planted acreage on record.

North Dakota growers are expected to plant ...More Info

Canada’s barley acreage is expected to increase this year, Statistics Canada posted on April, 24.

The total area seeded to barley on the Prairies is expected to rise 145,000 acres to 8.9 million acres (+ 1.3% compared to the acreage planted with barley last year).

Farmers in Manitoba and Saskatchewan expect to plant more barley, while in Alberta, farmers could plant the same area as in 2008.

According to the latest customs data, China’s total barley imports amounted to 190,573 tons in March, up 80.59% compared to March 2008, Dow Jones reported on April, 21.

The first quarter of this year saw the nation’s barley imports increase by 15.8% yoy to 393,123 tons.

China’s export of barley constituted 2,034 tons in March (+ 143.38% yoy) and to 3,472 tons over the January – March period (- 41.2% yoy).

Having registered a huge discount, the market has been demonstrating a relative stability with regard to the malting barley crop 2009 for the last several weeks, La Depeche published on April, 24.

Malting barley is traded this week at a big price dispersion. Deals remain focused on January-June, traders report.

EU’s feed barley market seems to be a little more animated than last week. The main interest is demonstrated by animal feed producers from the north of the EU. The customers are evidently attracted by the current low level of prices.

Masaaki Yano, Werner Back and Martin Krottenthaler

Abstract:
J. Inst. Brew. 114(4), 357–364, 2008 There is a vast repository of knowledge regarding improving beer taste stability via wort boiling. However, as far as we are aware, there are few reports dealing with taste stability improvement in terms of quality characteristics by boiling, under proper conditions, the first wort and second worts separately. In this study, more than 50 brews in a pilot scale brewing facility were conducted to investigate suitable boiling conditions for first and second worts. When the second wort (i.e., the last 10% of the total filtered wort) was kept under a low heat load atmosphere (78°C), casted to the boiling first wort, and then re-boiled for 10 min, the produced beer exhibited no significant differences compared to that of the general beer in terms of taste stability. However, when an adsorbent (bentonite, silica gel, activated carbon or PVPP) was individually added to the second wort and the same boiling procedure was performed, the oxidized flavour of the forced aged beer, treated with activated carbon, significantly decreased, compared to that of the general brew (level of significance alpha = 0.01). The data from the chemical analysis and fermentation behavior are presented. Key words: Activated carbon, adsorbent, brewing, flavour stability, heat load, second wort, wort boiling. Load full article, 7 pages, 682 Kb, PDF file