Diageo’s net sales growth in the three months period ended September, 30 was 6% and its financial position showed no material change during the period, the brewing giant announced on October, 15.

£277 million of share repurchases as part of the share buyback programme were the principal reason for the movement in net assets from £4.2 billion at 30 June 2008 to £4.1 billion at 30 September 2008, the company reported.

Diageo’s official site posted the following statement by Chief Executive Paul Walsh:

“As we anticipated, global GDP growth has slowed since the beginning of the financial year. Although these challenging economic trends have affected our business, the strength and diversity of Diageo has delivered a good trading performance in the first quarter.

While we have not seen significant adverse changes in our markets in the first quarter, we will be alert to the impact the recent dislocation in the financial markets is likely to have on trade customer and consumer behaviour during the rest of the financial year. However, based on our current performance we can repeat the guidance we gave in August, for organic operating profit growth for the coming year to be within the range of 7% to 9%.”

In its ...More Info

InBev disclosed on its official site on October, 16 the information required under article 15, § 1 of the Law of 2 May 2007 regarding the disclosure of important shareholdings in listed companies.

According to the company, information as at October, 15, 2008 was as follows: • Total outstanding capital: €474,826,972.69 • Total number of outstanding ordinary shares: 616,318,297 • Total number of outstanding subscription rights (each right entitles the holder to subscribe to one new ordinary share): 3,596,977 • Total number of outstanding options (each option entitles the holder to purchase from InBev one existing ordinary share): 2,296,001

InBev’s bylaws state that the threshold as from which a shareholding needs to be disclosed, is 3 %.

San Miguel Brewery achieved a net income of 7.0 billion pesos ($146 million) in the first nine months of 2008, up nearly 23 percent compared to last year, Reuters communicated on October, 16.

The revenue during this period climbed 10 percent from a year earlier to 35.2 billion pesos, as sales were mainly driven by effective marketing campaigns, the company said in a statement.

Sales volume rose by 6%, San Migel announced.

“Results were driven by strong execution, and strong consumption coming from increased visibility for flagship brand San Miguel Pale Pilsen during this year’s 120-day Oktoberfest celebration,” the company said. “Ads of key brands, San Mig Light, Gold Eagle, and Red Horse have also stimulated consumption."

San Miguel Brewery declared a P0.15 per share cash dividend, payable this November 12 to its shareholders of record as of October 31, 2008.

The company recently launched two new products — San Miguel Premium All-Malt Beer and a special edition San Miguel Oktoberfest Brew.

"Consumer acceptance has been strong particularly for All-Malt Premium. Plans are currently underway to extend the reach of the product beyond the metropolitan area," the company said.

($1 = 48.08 pesos)

Grupo Modelo announced on October, 16 that it had filed a notice of arbitration against Anheuser-Busch in connection with the proposed merger between the US brewer and InBev, the Wall Street Journal reported on the same day.

As set forth in the notice of arbitration, the Investment Agreement, which is governed by Mexican law, prohibits Anheuser-Busch from taking actions that would result in a transfer or disposition of its interests in Grupo Modelo and Diblo, Modelo’s subsidiary, to a competitor in the beer business.

In addition, the Investment Agreement prohibits Anheuser-Busch from taking any actions that would result in a transfer or disposition of any portion of its investment in Grupo Modelo and Diblo without first giving the controlling shareholders of Grupo Modelo an opportunity to purchase the shares in Modelo and Diblo being transferred by Anheuser-Busch.

Since the $52 billion deal to sell the brewer of Budweiser and Bud Light to InBev was announced this summer, Grupo Modelo, Mexico's largest brewer, has said that it has consent rights over the deal. The company, which is 50 percent owned by Anheuser-Busch, had been in talks with InBev related to that.

In late July, Grupo Modelo Chief Executive Officer Carlos Fernandez said the company ...More Info

InBev may bring in “strategic investors” to help pay for the purchase of Anheuser-Busch, Bloomberg cited Merrill Lynch analysts on October, 15.

The Belgian brewer, which postponed the $9.8 billion rights offer until markets stabilized, has arranged so-called equity bridge loan of the same size that must be repaid six months after the takeover is completed. Tumbling markets have pushed InBev shares near a three-year low, experts reported.

The main InBev shareholders, a group of Belgian families and Brazilian investors, declined to take their full entitlement of stock rights, potentially risking their controlling stake, Merrill's Nico Lambrechts said. A “wild card” scenario would see those investors stump up more cash to buy stock, or else find another buyer for their unwanted rights, he said.

“A higher share price at the time of the rights issue reduces the dilution impact,” the analyst wrote in an e-mailed note, without giving any theories on who InBev may target as a “strategic investor.” He rates InBev “buy” and expects a 47-euro stock price, compared with yesterday's close of 33.72.

“The main risk on the deal financing in our view is that InBev would be unable to sell the $7 billion of non-core assets within 12 months,” possibly ...More Info

ABB Grain Ltd., Australia's largest barley exporter, reported on October, 16 that revised full-year profit guidance rose more than six-fold after increasing Ukraine and New Zealand sales.

ABB’s net profit after tax is between A$47 million ($33 million) and A$49 million in the year ended Sept. 30, according to the company’s statement.

The Australian company formed a joint venture with France's Groupe Soufflet to expand into the Ukraine in August and exported its first Ukrainian shipment of feed barley to the Middle East. ABB had forecast profit of as much as A$38 million on May 27.

“The advantage of investing in the Ukraine is that ABB is able to supply its regular customers in the Middle East and Asia with more grain, especially given the recent harvest in Ukraine, the largest in almost two decades,” Managing Director Michael Iwaniw said in the statement.

After the announcement, ABB’s stock jumped 10 percent to A$7.58 at 12:25 p.m. Sydney time on the exchange on October, 17.

The company is due to announce its full-year accounts to the exchange on Nov. 25, it said.

The 2008 crop of malting barley will be better than last year’s in France, La Depeche published on October, 16.

Fears of retarded harvest turned out to be groundless, experts informed. France’s total barley production is expected to reach 12 mln tonnes, up by 27% from 2007 results, and 18% higher than the average 2003 – 2007 achievements, according to the nation’s SSP statistics service. The 2008 barley crop will also beat the record of 1980.

Barley growers explain their success by increased acreage, exceptionally good average yields, and favourable weather.

Barley planted area and yields enjoyed a significant growth this year. Average yield of malting barley amounted to 68 centners/ha. More precisely put, winter barley yields rose by 19%, production amounted to 8.5 mln tonnes, an increase of 25% compared to 2007.

Spring barley yields increased to 14 centners/ha and production is 3.5 mln tonnes this year (+31%). Yields grew in all the regions of the country, it is reported.

Barley acreage is expanding for the third consecutive year. Barley as well as other cereals benefited from the revocation of compulsory fallows in 2008, which made available additional 384,000 ha. Winter and spring barley shared an 8.65% increase of planted areas. Total ...More Info

Like the markets of other cereals, the EU feed barley market is rather slack, disoriented by the confused economic situation, La Depeche communicated on October, 16.

Nevertheless, experts note several small one-time shipments in the direction of Rouen. Animal fodder producers have reduced their purchases to the minimum.

Prices for feed barley regained some strength towards weekend, but again lost their positions earlier this week. However, the fall was not as drastic as it was last several weeks.

Malting barley market is forsaken by consumers, experts report. A very limited number of deals has been closed recently. This grim background is pressing down the prices, analysts state.

The Canadian Wheat Board has submitted a recommendation to the federal government to raise 2007-08 initial payments, Saskatoon home page posted on October, 14.

According to sources, the CWB is asking for C$33 for feed barley (72 cents a bushel), and C$16 a tonne for malting barley (35 cents a bushel).

It usually takes four to six weeks for the government to approve an initial payment increase.

Preliminary hops harvest results are very encouraging, the Barth-Haas Group announced earlier this month.

The German hop crop benefited from favourable growing conditions and is harvesting an above average crop, both in yield and alpha, it was reported. This is particularly true for the Hallertau which is likely to witness the largest crop ever as measured in kilograms of alpha. The other growing areas (Elbe-Saale, Tettnang, Spalt) seem to be more in line with long-term average crop results.

The official crop estimate for Germany is 36,841 tonnes (80 mln lbs). Final alpha results will be published by the “Arbeitsgruppe Hopfenanalyse (AHA)” in the middle of October.

After a string of disappointing years the Czech Republic has finally returned a reasonably good crop with yields in the neighbourhood of long-term averages and alphas slightly higher.

Saaz/Saaz did particularly well while Trschitz is a disappointment, experts reported.

Slovakia will have a good crop despite severe storm damage which lowered the overall yield by 15 - 20%.

Poland is in for a normal crop with probably above average alphas. Slovenia also seems to be above average with Aurora in particular appearing to have strong alphas thanks to sufficient moisture during the growing season.

The Group’s estimate of the Chinese ...More Info

A. Iwami, B. G. Osborne, H.-N. Huynh, R. S. Anderssen, I. J. Wesley, Y. Kajiwara, H. Takashita1 and T. Omori

Abstract

J. Inst. Brew. 111(2), 181–189, 2005 The selection of grain that is optimum for barley Shochu is not straightforward. Usually malting barley is used, but not all malting barley samples perform well in Shochu production. In addition there is a genotype ? environment effect, so that a given variety may perform satisfactorily in one environment but not another. Therefore a method for testing samples for Shochu is required. This group has previously reported on the evaluation of barley for Shochu production using the Single Kernel Characterization System (SKCS) and demonstrated a significant correlation between the SKCS Hardness Index and pearling performance. The Hardness Index values are multivariate statistical predictions derived from an incremental change analysis of the crush-response profiles. In the present study, a detailed analysis was performed of the averaged SKCS Crush-Response Profiles of barley, obtained when measuring the SKCS Hardness Index. It was concluded that the morphological differences between averaged barley SKCS Crush-Response Profiles appear to allow barley varieties to be classified into four distinct classes. In addition, the elastic response to the crushing on the SKCS device of the aleurone layers of barley kernels yields a useful predictor of pearling quality /performance. Key words: Aleurone layers, barley, crush-response profiles, hardness, pearling, shochu, SKCS. Load full article, 9 pages, 749 Kb, PDF file