Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board has cleared the $2.5 billion takeover of Lion Nathan Ltd by the Japanese brewer Kirin Holdings, Reuters cited Australia's second-biggest brewer on June, 19.

Kirin agreed in May to buy the 53 percent of Lion it did not already own. Under Australian government regulations, takeovers of local companies by overseas ones need to be approved by the government.

Both brewers hope to have the deal completed by October this year.

Anheuser-Busch InBev's central European assets are not top of its for-sale list, not on the must-buy charts of rivals, and will need some sweetening to secure a deal with a private equity suitor, Reuters communicated on June, 18.

The Belgium-based world's largest brewer is testing the appetite of buyers for 11 breweries spread from the Czech Republic to Bulgaria, and may hold out for at least $2 billion.

Five private equity companies have expressed interest, sources claim - Cinven, Warburg Pincus, CVC Capital Partners, TPG and KKR.

But their interest may have been whetted more by the prospect of a favourably constructed deal than any thirst for beer.

KKR stepped into brewing by agreeing to buy AB InBev's Korea unit Oriental Brewery last month, but that was a single business and one it might sell back to the Belgian brewer, which has a right to retrieve it in five years at set but undisclosed terms.

The group of bidders, a respectable interest but hardly a stampede, might need some reassurance about a resale and some vendor financing to push the deal through.

"That's the only reason I can think that private equity guys would look at AB InBev CEE today," said a private equity manager.

Terms of ...More Info

The annual general meeting (AGM) of Drinks Union (DU), controlled by the Dutch brewery Heineken, said on June, 18 the firm's loss deepened from Kc52 mln to Kc286 mln last year and sales dropped by a fifth on the year to Kc1.033 bln, CTK reported on the same day.

The AGM decided to transfer the company's loss to the loss accumulated from previous years. The north-Bohemian brewery sold over 873,000 hectolitres of beer, down from 900,000 hectolitres around a year ago. Nearly a third of its output goes for export, namely to Germany.

According to the board, the most successful beer brands are Zlatopramen, Breznak and Louny. DU's breweries have low productivity levels, board chairman Erik Hamel said.

"As the crown weakened to the dollar, sales on the international markets also decreased," Hamel said.

Higher prices of raw materials also had an effect on the company's performance, he added.

The owner's equity was in the red last year, falling to more than minus Kc73 mln.

Despite the negative indicators, the firm is not insolvent, the board said. Brewery Kralovsky pivovar Krusovice, the DU's principal shareholder controlled by Heineken, is ready to raise share capital to consolidate the financial situation.

Heineken announced earlier this week that it ...More Info

The New Ljubljana Bank has started selling shares in Mercator and the Laško brewery on the open market after both companies defaulted on loans, B92 reported on June, 19.

The bank announced on June, 19 that it would begin selling 10.75 percent and 23.51 percent of Mercator and Laško’s shares respectively, which the bank confiscated from Infond Holding, after it failed to return a loan of EUR 130 mln before the agreed deadline.

All interested bidders can submit their binding offers up to July 10, after which negotiations will begin between the bank and interested buyers.

Priority will be given to buyers who are prepared to buy all the shares of both companies being offered.

Interest buyers must submit a bank guarantee of at least EUR 10 mln. The current price of the stake being sold by the bank on the Ljubljana stock market is about EUR 158 mln.

The Spanish Supreme Court has put an end to the trademark conflict between the Dutch brewer Bavaria and the Bayerischer Brauerbund (the Bavarian Brewers Federation), PRNewswire reported on June, 18.

After 10 years of litigation Bavaria has finally won this battle. This victory in Spain follows on Bavaria's recent victory in Australia.

The Bayerischer Brauerbund had argued that the trademark "Bavaria" is in conflict with the geographical indication "Bayerisches Bier". Furthermore, the trademark "Bavaria" could - in the view of the Bayerischer Brauerbund - cause confusion with respect to the geographical origin of the product.

The Supreme Court did not agree with the Bayerischer Brauerbund and Bavaria has won the cassation appeal on all grounds. First of all, the Supreme Court ruled that the protection for the geographical indication "Bayerisches Bier" does not extend to variations of that indication, such as "Bavaria", all the more since that trademark clearly differs from the geographical indication "Bayerisches Bier".

The Supreme Court concluded further that "Bavaria" is a name with a distinctive fantasy nature that does not in any way conflict with the protected geographical indication "Bayerisches Bier".

There is also no ground to oppose the use of the trademark "Bavaria" because that prior trademark had been registered ...More Info

In response to Russia’s banning of the imports of milk from Belarus, Minsk authorities restricted the imports of Russian beer in the country, Pravda reported on June, 17.

Officials of the State Control Committee (SCC) of Belarus claimed that 20 percent of the Russian beer was imported to the country illegally, which supposedly made the Treasury of Belarus lose several million dollars.

“The SCC is keeping a close eye on the circulation and supply of beer in Belarus. In 2002 the consumption of beer in Belarus totaled 1.7 million hl as against 3.0 million hl in 1990. It did not mean that the Belarusians reduced consumption. It meant that the rest 1.3 million hl were illegally imported and sold in Belarus,” Elena Masurnovskaya, head of the department for the control over circulation of excisable goods of SCC, said.

In her words, the Russian beer accounts for almost 70% of the total beer import in Belarus. In 2002 alone, due to the shady business practices in beer import, Belarus lost nearly Br50 billion in excise taxes and VAT. In January-March 2009, Belarus imported 27 million litres of beer, of them 17 million from Russia. This year Belarus has already lost about Br15 billion in ...More Info

Leading Australian agribusiness, ABB Grain Ltd, announced on June, 19 it will start work next month on a new malt house and grains packing facility near Sydney, after receiving development approval and acquiring the necessary land at Minto.

Earlier this week, sources said that ABB’s subsidiary Joe White Maltings expected to start construction of a new barley malting plant at Minto by the end of June.

ABB Grain managing director, Michael Iwaniw, said the A$90 million development, comprising a 110,000 tonne capacity malt house and a grains container packing facility for the company’s subsidiaries Joe White Maltings and Professional Grain Services (Prograin), would be built on the Hudson site which was previously part of the Macarthur Intermodal Shipping Terminal group (MIST) site.

ABB’s site, acquired for an additional A$10 million, is adjacent to the main southern railway line into the port of Sydney. MIST and related company Independent Railroads of Australia have signed a long-term agreement to provide logistics services for grain delivered into the malt house and container packing facility and, after processing, to Port Botany.

Mr Iwaniw said the facility would take 20,000 trucks off New South Wales roads by maximising rail usage to transport grain.

The Prograin facility will handle 250,000 tonnes ...More Info

Baltika Breweries, Russia’s largest beer producer, announced on June, 18 it has inaugurated the additional facilities at its Yaroslavl brewery’s malthouse, allowing it to increase production capacity to 105 thousand tonnes of malt annually.

The construction and development of a malthouse in Yaroslavl is an important stage in Baltika’s investments policy aimed at reducing costs and preserving the high quality of products, the company said.

So far Baltika was able to meet more than a third of its malt needs by the production of its malt plants in Tula (annual capacity:105 thousand tonnes of malt), St. Petersburg (Baltika holds a 30% stake in Soufflet’s malting plant with an annual output of 110 thousand tonnes), and Yaroslavl (105 thousand tonnes).

By doubling the production capacity of the Yaroslavl facility the company will be able to cover almost half of its malt needs.

Both feed and malting barley classes have enjoyed steady prices in the short term, but looking ahead to next year we could see a shortage of barley that could lead to price increases, Marvin Zutz, Minnesota Barley Growers Association executive director, was quoted as saying by Farm & Ranch Guide on June, 18.

Mr. Zutz points to a large amount of prevented planting barley acres in his state, late plantings in other areas and a decrease in world barley acreage as well.

“The northern Red River Valley was hard hit by cool and damp weather this spring. As a result, many of the intended barley plantings didn't get seeded,” he said. “Many of the acres up in Kittson and Roseau counties ended up being prevented plant acres. And some of the crop that did come up was plastered by a hard rain, so those stands aren't very good. By and large the barley crop in Minnesota this year will be less than is desired.”

The situation is similar in North Dakota, the leading barley producing state in the nation.

“It's anybody's guess if all those acres were planted, since a large part of North Dakota had the same problems we did, especially around the ...More Info

According to FranceAgriMer’s report as of June 10, the exports of European barley have maintained the status quo.

Over the last month, the EU exported just 22,000 tonnes of barley. In total, barley export licenses issued by the EU since the beginning of the 2008/09 campaign amounted to a little more than 3.3 mln tons.

Last year, the EU’s barley export licenses stood at this time at 3.7 mln tons.

Dennis E. Briggs, Stanley M. Sole, and Philip Latham

Abstract:
J. Inst. Brew. 115(1), 41–48, 2009 Triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining of individual isolated barley aleurone layers was carried out under aseptic conditions and the amount of formazan generated under a standardized incubation period was quantified. The nature of the tests minimized or excluded the influences of grain damage, ageing or contaminating microorganisms. Embryos from selected Triumph barley grains, having intensely or poorly staining aleurone layers, were grown on to maturity. Collected grain was analysed and embryos from the highest-staining progeny from the highstaining aleurone line and the lowest-staining progeny of the low-staining aleurone line were grown on to yield grain of the second selected generations. Aleurone layers of the high-staining line continued to stain intensely, respired strongly, and generated large amounts of alpha-amylase in response to gibberellic acid and embryos from these grains respired and grew vigorously, as did whole grains. In contrast, the aleurone layers of grains from the low-staining line continued to stain poorly and respired weakly, generated little alpha-amylase in response to gibberellic acid, the embryos respired slowly and lacked vigour and, like the whole grains, grew poorly. It is proposed that these results are the consequence of the selection procedure separating lines with superior and inferior mitochondria. If this apparently novel approach using TTC staining is confirmed as being valid, it opens a new way for plant breeders to select for more vigorous cereal lines. Key words: Barley, mitochondria, novel plant-breeding possibilities, tetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining, uniformity, vigour. Load full article, 8 pages, 131 Kb, PDF file