Belgium-based world’s largest brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev said on April, 30 that it has completed the previously announced sale of its 19.9% minority stake in Tsingtao Brewery Co., Ltd. to the Japanese Asahi Breweries, Ltd.

Asahi acquired the shares from Anheuser-Busch InBev for 667 million USD.

The divestiture of this stake in Tsingtao is part of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s ongoing deleveraging program and allows the company to unlock shareholder value, generating proceeds that will be used to repay debt incurred as a result of the acquisition of Anheuser-Busch.

Under the terms of the agreement announced on 23 January 2009, Anheuser-Busch InBev sold 261,577,836 H-shares of Tsingtao to Asahi at a price of 19.78 HKD per share as of January 22, 2009 implying an EBITDA 08 estimate multiple of 14.2x. This price represents a premium of 38% against the closing price of H-shares as of January 22, 2009, AB InBev said.

As a result of the transaction, Asahi is now Tsingtao’s second largest shareholder. Tsingtao Brewery Group remains the largest shareholder in Tsingtao.

Anheuser-Busch InBev will retain a minority share in Tsingtao of approximately 7%.

Fomento Económico Mexicano, S.A.B. de C.V. (“FEMSA”) announced on April, 30 its operational and financial results for the first quarter of 2009.

Total revenues of FEMSA Cerveza, the company’s brewing division, increased 10.4% over 1Q08 to Ps. 10.054 billion. Higher average price per hectolitre in all of the company’s operations, combined with volume growth in exports and Brazil drove these results. Mexican beer sales represented 69.8% of total beer revenues, while Brazil and export beer sales reached 18.2% and 12.0% of total beer revenues, respectively.

FEMSA’s total beer sales dropped 1.3% to 9,115.2 thousand hl in the first quarter of this year as compared to the same period in 2008.

Beer sales volume in Mexico decreased 3.0% to 5.878 mln hl, compared to the solid 7.1% volume growth in 1Q08. “This decrease partially reflects unfavourable calendar effects resulting from one calendar day less in February and the Easter period shifting to 2Q09, as well as price increases implemented during the last twelve months,” FEMSA explained. The Tecate brand family combined with Dos Equis had another quarter of particularly solid performance.

Brazil sales volume increased 1.9% to 2.451 mln hl in spite of price increases implemented over the past three quarters.

FEMSA Cerveza’s export sales ...More Info

Japan’s Asahi Breweries Ltd. reported it swung into a net loss in the January-March quarter due to a slump in beer sales, Dow Jones communicated on April, 30.

The country's biggest beer maker by market share suffered a group net loss of Y964 million in the fiscal first quarter, compared with a profit of Y2.60 billion a year earlier.

Sales during the quarter dropped 4.8% to Y277.40 billion from Y291.46 billion, while it had an operating loss of Y4.94 billion from the year-earlier profit of Y3.44 billion.

Japanese brewers tend to post relatively low profits, or sometimes losses, in the January-March quarter. Beer demand is usually weak during that period, and breweries spend a lot of money on promoting new products ahead of the peak summer season.

In addition, Asahi's beer sales fell from the year-earlier quarter, when consumers rushed to buy Asahi's beer products ahead of a price hike effective in March last year. For this fiscal year ending December, Asahi Breweries left unrevised its net profit outlook at Y50 billion with an operating profit of Y92 billion and sales of Y1.490 trillion. Separately, Asahi said it completed its purchase of a 19.99% stake in China's Tsingtao Brewery Co. for ...More Info

Tsingtao Brewery Co., China's largest beer maker by revenue, said first-quarter profit rose 54 percent as lower taxes countered slower growth caused by declining demand, Bloomberg reported on April, 30.

Net income climbed to 199.4 million yuan ($29 million) in the three months ended March from 129.6 million yuan a year earlier, the company said in a statement to Hong Kong’s stock exchange.

Tsingtao and bigger rival China Resources Enterprise Ltd. are battling weakening demand in the world’s largest market for the beverage. China’s first-quarter economic growth was the slowest in almost a decade and the government is implementing a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package to cushion the effects of the global recession.

“The company had to face the lower demand in the domestic beer market resulting from the financial crisis,” Tsingtao, based in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao, said in its statement.

Sales volume growth slowed to 5.2 percent compared with 17.7 percent in the same period last year. Tsingtao reported sales volume of 12.1 million hectolitres in the three months ended March.

Tsingtao brand beer sales rose 22 percent to 6 hectolitres, the company said.

Income-tax expenses dropped 37 percent to 74.8 million yuan, whereas earnings per ...More Info

Kirin Holdings Company, Limited reported on April, 30 it has successfully completed partial acquisition of the shares of San Miguel Brewery Inc (SMB).

Completion of the transfer of all San Miguel Brewery shares Kirin intends to acquire is expected at the end of May 2009, the Japanese brewer said.

Kirin said the number of shares it acquired from the Philippine brewer’s parent, San Miguel Corporation, amounted to 2,185,402,491. The number of shares purchased from public shareholders is 778,847,590.

Based on the number of shares as of December 31, 2008, Kirin’s ownership of San Miguel Brewery after acquisition is 19.23%. The purchase price was Php26.21 billion (approx. ¥52.4 billion).

San Miguel Corporation disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange it has sold 2.185 billion shares to Kirin at Php8.841 per share. This represented the first tranche of a 43.23 percent block in SMB - equivalent to about 6.66 billion shares - that parent San Miguel had committed to sell to the Japanese brewer at the same price per share.

Total acquisition price is Php58.93 billion (approx. ¥117.9 billion), Kirin said.

At the end of the transaction, Kirin will have a total of 48.3 percent interest in SMB, including the shares bought from minority shareholders.

On the other hand, San ...More Info

German breweries sold less beer than ever in the first quarter of 2009, Earth Times posted on April, 30.

Industry observers say both the recession and a smoking ban in bars took its toll.

According to the Federal Statistics Office figures, sales of the amber liquid were down 6.8 per cent from a year ago to 20.7 million hectolitres, the lowest amount since records were first kept in 1993.

Some 86.3 per cent of the beer produced in Germany is for domestic consumption. Exports to Germany's neighbours in the European Union slumped 12.5 per cent to 2.2 million hectolitres.

Last year, German brewers sold 102.9 million hectolitres of beer, 1.1 million less than in 2007.

A smoking ban introduced in most pubs and restaurants last year has been hitting sales, as is the economic slowdown, which has seen tens of thousands of workers put on reduced hours at less pay.

BrandZ 2009 Top 100 Ranking Report published this month reveals the brand value of the beer category has grown by 15 percent.

Analysts explain the increase by the consumer effort to economize by shifting consumption from bars and restaurants to home.

Bud Light surpassed Budweiser in brand value, with a year-on-year increase of 33 percent, reflecting the rising popularity of light beers. This accomplishment has been driven in part by a shift in tastes, the trend toward increased health consciousness, and competitive pricing, analysts comment. Budweiser brand value grew by 13% from the past year.

At the super-premium end of the market, Kronenbourg 1664 has moved up in the rankings to number 10 from number 12. This advance was driven by a 41 percent increase in year-on-year brand value, which places it among the top 20 risers in the BrandZ ranking.

By strange coincidence, the Kronenbourg 1664 brand value is $1,664 million. The brand was introduced in Russia last year, where overall consumption has quadrupled after legislation relaxed restrictions on beer drinking.

Heineken remains in third place after Bud Light and Budweiser, with a 10 percent year-on-year rise in brand value. Attempting to keep the brand relevant as consumption shifts away from on-premise ...More Info

Carlsberg Malaysia hopes to complete the acquisition of two beverage manufacturers in the region this year, chairman Datuk Lim Say Chong was quoted as saying by The Star Online on April, 29.

“We are looking at opportunities and hope to conclude the discussions this year,” he said after the company Annual General Meeting on April, 28.

The brewery had at its disposal about RM227 mln as at end-2008.

Lim said he could not disclose further information but added that the acquisitions were important for long-term growth.

Previously, managing director Soren Holm Jensen said Carlsberg does not view the acquisitions as “necessary”, given its strong market position and brand.

“It is not necessary but is an opportunity for us to make our money work in a better way,” he said, adding that it was also possible to make acquisitions at more “favourable” rates at this point in time.

Jensen said the main challenge for the company this year was the economic downturn, which would affect consumer spending.

“However, the beer market is relatively resilient and so far, we have not seen clear signals of a slowdown,” he said.

Other challenges include high raw and packaging material costs due to the company’s forward-buying policy (raw material prices have come off ...More Info

In about six months that have passed since the Belgian InBev completed the purchase of Anheuser-Busch, the American brewer has been turned from a family-led company that spared little expense into one that is focused intently on cost-cutting and profit margins, the Wall Street Journal posted on April, 29.

The new owner has cut jobs, revamped the compensation system and dropped perks that had made Anheuser-Busch workers the envy of others in St. Louis. Also, the combined company has told barley merchants, ad agencies and other vendors that it wants to take up to 120 days to pay bills. And some sports deals that were central to marketing at the old Anheuser-Busch have been cancelled.

The changes have been tough for workers to swallow. A spokeswoman of the Belgian company responds as follows: It's more effective to make "sweeping, dramatic changes" than incremental ones. Asked if morale in the U.S. is suffering, Dave Peacock, a 40-year-old Anheuser-Busch veteran who heads the U.S. division, said, "I think there's probably some truth....Some people react very well, some people struggle with it." Returning to the issue later in an interview, he said the newly merged company "is like a start-up....That excites some people and turns ...More Info

Last week, EU’s malting barley market showed a temporary increase in prices, La Depeche posted on April, 30.

Inspired by rains which fell in central Europe, the market is focused on the 2009/10 crop year though the number of sellers is almost zero, it is reported. Prices of feed barley have been inert as has the trading activity, limited to several small-scale deals FOB Rouen.

Canadian Viterra Inc. is preparing for a possible acquisition of Australia’s largest barley trader and maltster by raising CA$450 million in an equity issue through a bought-deal private placement to exempt purchasers, The Canadian Press reported on April, 30.

The Regina-based agribusiness conglomerate said that the proceeds "will provide a portion of the funding that may be required should Viterra determine that it will proceed with the acquisition of shares of ABB Grain Ltd."

The equity issue is priced at CA$8.00 per share, and is conditional on the closing of a takeover of ABB Grain.

Viterra said its underwriters have identified Alberta Investment Management Corp. as a buyer of half the offering. Other prospective institutional investors were not named.

Viterra had confirmed on April 27 that it is in talks on a possible acquisition of ABB Grain, the former Australian Barley Board - a deal that could cost CA$1.4 billion in cash and stock.

"We feel it is important to put ourselves in a position to act quickly should due diligence and negotiations result in a strategic transaction," Viterra CEO Mayo Schmidt stated

"Having this offering underwritten illustrates the market's confidence in this team's ability to carefully assess opportunities and execute strategies that deliver value for ...More Info

Barbara Jaskula, Koen Goiris, Gert De Rouck, Guido Aerts, Luc De Cooman

Abstract:
J. Inst. Brew. 113(4), 381–390, 2007 A pleasant and consistent bitterness is an essential flavour attribute of beer. Hop-derived iso-alpha-acids are largely responsible for beer bitterness and accurate determination of these primary flavour compounds is very important in relation to quality control. The most widely used way to determine beer bitterness is based on spectrophotometry, measuring the absorbance of an iso-octane extract of acidified beer. However, this approach is far from specific as it measures all of the extracted compounds, including non-bittering principles. For that particular reason, High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) is increasingly applied for the quantitative determination of hop-derived iso-?-acids and, if present, reduced iso-alpha-acids. However, to obtain accurate data on beer bitterness profiles, both quantitative sample preparation and state-of-the-art HPLC are essential. In this paper, several extraction procedures based on solid phase extraction (SPE) and liquid-liquid extraction (LLE), respectively, were evaluated and an optimised extraction methodology using H3PO4 for sample acidification prior to extraction is presented. The proposed extraction/HPLC methodology allows for the quantitative recovery and analysis of hop-derived beer bitterness. Key words: alpha-Acids, beer bitterness, extraction, HPLC analysis, iso-?alpha-acids, recovery. Load full article, 10 pages, 630 Kb, PDF file