Russian brewing company Tinkoff has announced recently that it is to open a new brewery in Pushkino, near St. Petersburg together with leading German brewer Krones AG. The new brewery is worth US$75 million (EUR 64 million). Tinkoff said the respective agreement with German Krones AG was signed on October 14. Krones' Steinecker is the contractor. The brewery will have an annual capacity of approximately 20 million litres with further expansion up to 4 mln hl and should be operational by September 2004, Vedomosti newspaper reported. According to Vedomosti, German and Russian banks will provide loans to Tinkoff in order for the company to finance its part of the project. German bank HVB will provide a five-year loan of about US$ 15 million.

By opening the new brewery, Tinkoff, which holds now 0.08% of the Russian beer market, will be rated in the first ten biggest brewers of Russia. In fact Tinkoff is not a big market player. According to the company, in 2003 its turnover will come to US$35 million that is 15 times less than for Baltika. According to analysts after launching the new brewery, Tinkoff will produce about 2.8% of beer in Russia.

During 2003 the expanding Tinkoff company has opened four of its own restaurants and is due to open a fifth by the year end. This brings the total amount of investments in the restaurant chain to $16 million during the course of the last 5 years. The group says that in 2004 it plans to invest $10 million more.

The company is opening a private brewery in Ufa, Bashkortostan, in the middle of December 2003, which will be the sixth restaurant in Tinkoff chain. The restaurant includes a brewery which is located in the restaurant hall and produces 15,300 litres per month.

15 October, 2003