Australia: Coopers Brewery may be able to snag a few new brands thanks to AB InBev-SABMiller merger
Glenn Cooper, the chairman of Australia’s largest locally owned brewer, South Australia’s Coopers Brewery, believes the family-owned firm might be able to snag a few new brands that could fall out of the newly merged AB InBev-SABMiller beer colossus, helping to boost its market share in the midst of a continued downturn in the sector, The Australian reported on June 29.
Mr Cooper told The Australian Coopers was perfectly placed thanks to its national spread and distribution to team up with foreign beer brands seeking an independent local partner.
“As always when these takeovers occur globally, what’s quite good for us, and has occurred in the past, is that up comes a brand that doesn’t want to be part of that global coming together. An example of this was Carlsberg when we ended up brewing Carlsberg locally,’’ Mr Cooper said.
On June 27 there was a realigning of beer brands in Australia in the wake of this year’s $US107.7 billion (A$145.4 bln) takeover of SABMiller by AB InBev, with a portfolio of brands including Corona, Australia’s fourth-biggest selling beer, shifting from Lion back to AB InBev. Lion also lost local control of Budweiser, Stella Artois, Beck’s and Hoegaarden as they rejoined the AB InBev stable.
In 2012, when SABMiller was the suitor and it bought Foster’s for A$12 bln, there was a realignment of brewing, with Carlsberg and Kronenbourg heading to the Coopers stable.
“Carlsberg came out of the coming together of certain breweries … and so it will be interesting to see what comes out of the SABMiller AB InBev merger, to see what it throws up,” Mr Cooper said. Coopers had “a fabulous opportunity because if a brand that’s quite well known and gets thrown out because it doesn’t want to deal with the large group, their choice for other breweries that have the capacity and quality is not great — it’s Coopers. And so they do come to us and we think an opportunity may come out of it.”
Although beer consumption in Australia was at a low level not seen since World War II and continued to decline, Mr Cooper said Coopers sales over the past 12 months were up 3 per cent.
“People’s consumption habits for beer is certainly down at the moment,” he said. “Beer sales have been down for a long time but still at one point people still like to have a beer. Whether they are up or down, I think it comes down more to the free amount of cash available in the economy.’’
He said the twice annual lift in beer excise was adding cost pressure to the category, and was having more of an impact on volumes than the economy or consumer sentiment. “Beer is getting expensive because of the excise increase twice a year,” he said. “That excise tax is pushing beer very high and this is more of a concern for us for brewers, as beer has got to be within reach of all people.
“I think the election does slow things up now but let’s get that over with, let’s get into some warm weather and I think you will find things will go up."
29 June, 2016
