China's leading brewers face mounting challenges as they attempt to expand market share while their margins are squeezed by higher input costs and a recent dip in sales, XFN-ASIA quoted Goldman Sachs on July 30.

Goldman Sachs announced it had downgraded Tsingtao's Hong Kong shares to "neutral" from "buy" and its A-shares to "sell" from "neutral" due to likely weak second quarter results and a more challenging competitive landscape.

The brokerage cut its Tsingtao H-share target price to 20 hkd from 27 hkd, and its A-share target to 12.5 yuan from 28.5 yuan.

On July 29, Tsingtao's H-shares were reported to close at 17.1 in Hong Kong, while in the morning of July 30 its A-shares were up 0.04 pct at 24.1 yuan in Shanghai.

Meanwhile, Yanjing Brewery remains "neutral," but its price target has been cut to 17.1 yuan from 18 yuan. The brewer's shares were up 0.96 pct at 16.76 yuan July 30 in the morning.

Goldman Sachs explained the changes in China’s competitive landscape by the merger of InBev and Anheuser-Busch, which will become the country's number two player with significant exposure to both the premium and mass markets.

However, as the integration InBev and A-B will take some time, the immediate ...More Info

According to Anheuser-Busch, investment banking, legal and accounting services connected to the $52 billion transaction will cost the company about $120 million in cash in the second half of 2008, STLToday wrote on July 26. The deal is expected to close this year.

Besides, the company anticipates incurring a $72 million non-cash charge in the fourth quarter because of the accelerated vesting of stock compensation awards. There also will be about $40 million in cash payments under an enhanced officer bonus program and cash payments of $71 million for deferred compensation and retirement plans for officers and directors of the company.

As it was reported, two lawsuits stemming from InBev's takeover proposal have been dropped.

One month ago, InBev filed a lawsuit against Anheuser-Busch in Delaware Chancery Court. InBev asked the court to rule that Anheuser-Busch's stockholders were permitted to remove all of the company's directors without cause. On July 23, InBev dropped the lawsuit.

On July 24, Anheuser-Busch dropped its case against InBev, filed July 7 in federal court in St. Louis. Anheuser-Busch had alleged that InBev made false and misleading statements regarding its nonbinding buyout proposal.

Tuija Sarlin, A. Vilpola, E. Kotaviita, J. Olkku and A. Haikara

Abstract

J. Inst. Brew. 113(2), 147–153, 2007 Fungal hydrophobins have been shown to induce gushing of beer. In order to study the occurrence and fate of hydrophobins at different stages of the production chain of beer, barley samples artificially infected in the field with Fusarium culmorum, F. graminearum and F. poae were collected during the growing period as well as during various stages of the malting process. In addition, naturally infected malt was brewed in pilot scale and samples were collected throughout the process. The samples were assayed for hydrophobin content using an ELISA method. The results showed that fungi produced hydrophobins that accumulated during barley grain development in the field, but that production was more pronounced during malting. Prolonged storage of barley tended to reduce the ability of fungi to produce hydrophobins in malting. Studies on the fate of hydrophobins during the brewing process revealed that mashing released hydrophobins from the malt into the wort. Some loss of hydrophobins occurred throughout the brewing process with spent grains, cold break (wort boiling) and surplus yeast. In addition, the beer filtration step reduced hydrophobin levels. Despite the substantial loss of hydrophobins during brewing, the level was high enough to induce the gushing detected in the final beer. Key words: Brewing, Fusarium, hydrophobins, malting. Load full article, 7 pages, 534 Kb, PDF file