Tsingtao Brewery Group Company Limited, the parent of China’s top beer maker, Tsingtao Brewery, has increased its shareholding in the brewing company through the trading system of the Shanghai Stock Exchange on September, 25, according to an official press release.

Tsingtao Group increased its stock in the company by 1,879,950 shares. Immediately prior to this, the parent held 399,820,000 shares of the enterprise, representing approximately 30.56% of the total issued shares. Immediately following this share acquisition, Tsingtao Group held 401,699,950 shares of the company, representing approximately 30.71% of the total issued shares.

The parent would continue to increase its stake in the listed company over the next 12 months, but the total stake would not exceed 2 percent of Tsingtao Brewery's total floated shares, it was reported.

Local-currency A shares in Shanghai-listed Tsingtao Brewery closed up 4.82 percent at 15.89 yuan on September, 25, outperforming the overall market's, Reuters communicated.

Last week, China’s government unveiled an unprecedented package of steps to bolster the sagging stock markets, including scrapping taxes on stock purchases and encouraging state-owned corporations to buy back shares of their listed units.

The Australian Foster’s Group has appointed Ian Johnston as CEO, the company announced on September, 26.

Mr Johnston, a director of Foster's, stepped in as the acting CEO in July following the exit of Trevor O'Hoy after a profit warning that forced a review of the group's troubled wine business.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank revealed it had built up a 5.3 per cent stake in the brewing company, the Australian communicated on September, 26.

The timing of the announcements sparked speculation Foster's could be preparing for a takeover battle. However, a person familiar with the situation said Mr Johnston's appointment was in train prior to Deutsche Bank's disclosure and a short-list of internal and external candidates had been made.

But with rumours Deutsche Bank had been accumulating shares for some weeks, it was a likely factor in chairman David Crawford's decision.

The Australian brewer had previously said an appointment would be made before the end of 2008. However, finding a chief executive while conducting a review may create a potential quandary, experts comment.

Deutsche Bank's disclosure was made to the Australian Stock Exchange after the close of trade on September, 25. The majority of the stock was acquired in relation to lending arrangements and stock ...More Info

Canadian Wheat Board released its final Pool Return Outlook (PRO) for the 2007/08 crop year on its official site on September, 26.

According to CWB, designated barley values increased C$4 per tonne while feed barley prices were down C$3.

A weakening of the overall feed barley market has negatively affected sales returns on the PRO and reduced it from its July level, the Board reported.

The small increase shown by malting barley over the July PRO resulted largely from an increase in pool size that allowed the pool to capture higher prices and boost the overall PRO slightly, the CWB said.

Dominik Szwajgier, Adam Wasko, Josef Zapp and Zdzislaw Targonski

Abstract

J. Inst. Brew. 113(2), 185–195, 2007 Ferulic acid (4-hydroxy-3-methoxycinnamic acid), predominantly in ester form in arabinoxylan chains, is the main phenolic acid present in barley and malt. Only about 1% of the total ferulic acid in barley is present in the free form. A number of previous works concerned the contents of free and esterified ferulic acid in a broad range of popular beers, but there is little information about the possible composition of feruloylated oligosaccharides in beers. The aim of this preliminary work was to purify the feruloylated oligosaccharides from lager beers (by the means of preparative chromatography) followed by composition elucidation using TLC, HPLC with RI or UV detection and 1H-NMR. Indeed, the qualitative analyses of isolated fractions from beer revealed that the fractions contained ferulic acid in the ester form (as proven after mild alkaline hydrolysis). It was also shown that molecular masses of oligosaccharides present in the purified beer fractions were similar to the masses of arabinose and xylooligosaccharides in the range of xylose to xylohexaose. Although a number of purified beer samples contained oligosaccharides of higher molecular masses, these were not further characterized. Taking under consideration the presented results, it can be concluded that beer can be a good source of feruloylated oligosaccharides, significant in the context of human health benefits. Key words: Antioxidant activity, beer, ferulic acid, feruloylated oligosaccharide, free radical. Load full article, 11 pages, 2836 Kb, PDF file