1. Trading offer & request

At this moment there is one OFFER for 1500 tons of malt on the trading portal www.e-malt.com

• Offer for 1-1500 mtons of malt, 2RS Prestige/Astoria, crop 2003, bags in container, delivery 1/1/2004 - 30/6/2004, at EUR 284.50/mton, FOB Antwerp. (to see and make a bid to the malt offer, please click here to view code MF1609P1634)
  
  

 Top Industry News 

More news is available on site www.e-malt.com  

• The Belgian brewing force Interbrew, which announced on September 18 it was to acquire the German brewer Spaten, has noticed that it may be interested in further acquisitions in the country ...more info



• Czechs drink less beer, according to figures released by the Czech Statistical Office on September 15. Up until 1998 beer consumption topped 160 litres per capita ...more info



• Denmark’s brewery, The Danish Brewery Group, is to expand its activity in Eastern and central Europe. To this purpose it intends to increase beer production, manufactured by Lithuanian brewery Kalnapilio-Tauro ...more info



• A three-month strike at Labatt Breweries in Montreal ended on September 17 after unionized workers accepted a deal reached following marathon negotiations ...more info



• Canada’s third largest brewery, Sleeman Breweries Ltd., announced on September 17 about its new deal to produce canned beer for worldwide distribution for Japanese Sapporo Breweries Ltd. ...more info



• The Polish beer maker Strzelec Brok is to issue between 5 million and 25 million shares, the company's CEO Adam Borodowski said on September 16 ...more info



• Singapore has brought 18 additional charges against an executive of Asia Pacific Breweries Ltd of defrauding Swedish, Japanese and German banks of up to US$69 million ...more info



• Canada's largest brewery, Molson Inc., said on September 18 it wants to make at least C$1 billion ($730 million) in profit before interest and taxes by fiscal 2009 ...more info




2. Brewery News

The Belgian brewing force Interbrew, announced on September 18 the signing of a strategic partnership with Gabriel Sedlmayr Spaten-Franziskaner Bräu KGaA ("Spaten"), which will combine Spaten's beer business with Interbrew Deutschland. The combination will create the largest brewery group in Germany with 15.6 million hectolitres production volumes and an 11% share of the German beer market. The transaction is subject to shareholders' and regulatory authorities' approval and is expected to close in the second half of 2004. The transaction values the combined Spaten and Dinkelacker beer interests at an enterprise value of €477 million (equity value €522 million; €45 million net cash), which is a multiple of 8.9x, the 2003 EBITDA estimate for the brewery group. Based on 2004 performance thresholds for Spaten, an additional future payment of up to €56 million may be triggered, leading to an enterprise value of up to €533 million with a comparable estimated EBITDA multiple, assuming the performance targets are fully met. The transaction will be executed in three steps: Spaten will spin-off the Spaten-Franziskaner brewing activities into a separate legal entity. These activities, plus Löwenbräu brewing, will be contributed to Interbrew Deutschland in exchange for a 13% share in the enlarged equity of Interbrew Deutschland. Brauerei Beck & Co (Interbrew Deutschland) will acquire the Dinkelacker-Schwaben Bräu business. The transaction is supported by all the family shareholders: the Sedlmayr, Haindl and von Finck families for Spaten and the Dinkelacker and Leicht families for Dinkelacker...more info

Global beer giant SABMiller Plc, based in London, is now the world second largest brewer and along with Heineken NV dominates most of the markets, but not Russia, where SABMiller is number 8. Now the company, which manufactures Castle and Pilsner Urquell beers, is to fill the missing piece of its strategic plans in eastern and central Europe. Russia is the world's fifth largest market and one of its fastest-growing beer markets. "Russia is very much a white space for us and we would look at acquisitions. We are alive to opportunities at the right price," SABMiller's Europe managing director Alan Clark said on September 18 at its European headquarters in Hungary. Europe is becoming increasingly important for SABMiller. If this summer's acquisition of Italy's Peroni had been included in its last results for the year to March 2003 the continent pipped South Africa beer and Miller to be its biggest profit earner. "We have the ambition to be number one or number two in all the markets where we operate," Clark said. The brewer first moved into eastern Europe in 1993 and leads in the Czech Republic with nearly half the beer market, and is number two to Heineken in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania. This gives SABMiller a 17 % share of eastern Europe compared with Heineken's 18 %. Excluding Russia, then Heineken leads with 37 % against SABMiller's 35 %. The Dutch brewer leapfrogged SABMiller in eastern Europe after buying BBAG for 1.9 billion euros ($2.15 billion) this year, according to Reuters...more info

Canada’s beer maker, Molson Inc., based in Montreal, denied on September 17 media report according to which it was "open to bids", adding that "under no circumstances" was it considering selling the company. Molson said the article published in the Globe and Mail after a presentation to investors by Molson President and Chief Executive Daniel O'Neill "misinterpreted the intent of the communication and as a result is misleading to shareholders." "Mr. O'Neill confirmed today that under no circumstances is Molson considering selling the company," the brewer said in a statement. The firm said it will instead focus on its core markets of Canada, the United States and Brazil, which could double its operating profit. "This is the key focus of Molson over the next five years," the company said. The speculations leaded to the fact that Molson’s shares fell 15 Canadian cents to C$34.50 on September 17 morning on the Toronto Stock Exchange as some 520,000 shares changed hands. Canada's largest brewer said on Tuesday it wanted to make at least C$1 billion ($730 million) in profit before interest and taxes by fiscal 2009 but did not plan to merge or make any acquisitions in the short term to help it meet that target. In fiscal 2003, which ended on March 31, the company's operating profit reached C$516 million...more info

Kosovo's state-owned brewery will be privatised according to the plans drawn up by Kosovo privatisation authority, country’s media reported. The UN governing body, which administers Kosovo at the present, hopes that the offer will attract much needed foreign investment. "We are already talking to potential international investors for both; European companies...major players," John Johnson, head of the privatisation department of the Kosovo Trust Agency, told Reuters in an interview yesterday. The brewery is in the western town of Pec and has a 40% market share producing 300,000 hectolitres of its own beer annually. According to the Reuters report it is already profitable but would need fresh funds to boost output. Johnson said there may be some employment conditions attached to the sale as the UK authorities did not want mass lay-offs. He declined to comment on which companies might be interested.

3. Malt News

Ukrainian brewery ZAO Sarmat announced about the construction on a new malting plant near Kiev. It is planned the new plant to have a production capacity of 80,000 tonnes of malt per year and to start producing malt in 2007-2008 years. The company said the new plant will have the biggest production capacity in Ukraine and will exceed even the capacity of Slavutsk malting plant. According to Stanislav Melnik, the General Director of Sarmat, now the construction is at the stage of projection. According to the company the project work will take about 1.5 years and building about 3 years. Now ZAO Sarmat cannot be supplied enough with malt of its own manufacture produced at Donetsk brewery. The missing malt is bought from Slavutsk malting plant.

4. Barley News

Australian Barley. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) confirmed on September 15 that late winter rains have significantly boosted Australia's grain crop potential. That is why ABARE raised its forecast of Australia's 2003-2004 barley crop to 7.33 million tonnes from a June forecast of 6.66 million tonnes. As to be expected, this is a significant rise on the poor 3.3 million tonnes harvested in 2002/03, HGCA reported in a statement. The key state barley producers in 2003/04 are set to be South Australia with 2.3 million tonnes (1.3 million tonnes in 2002), Western Australia with 2.2 million tonnes (1.2 million tonnes in 2002), Victoria with 1.3 million tonnes (0.4 million in 2002) and New South Wales 1.3 million tonnes (0.3 million in 2002). Queensland and Tasmania make up the rest. Domestic barley usage and exports are set to rise in 2003/04.Total domestic usage is forecast at 2.4 million tonnes (2.1 million in 2002). Of this, feed use is placed at 2.1 million tonnes (1.8 million tonnes in 2002). Seed usage makes up the rest. Exports are set to reach 4.8 million tonnes versus 2.3 million tonnes in 2002, of which feed barley exports are placed at 2.2 million tonnes (0.6 million tonnes in 2002), malting barley at 2 million tonnes (0.6 million tonnes in 2002), and malt in grain equivalent at 0.6 million tonnes (0.6 million tonnes in 2002). What will be of interest is the final production figure in New South Wales and Western Australia as these are the key exporting states of both feed and malting barley. Any changes in these crop figures, or quality of harvest, could have an impact on the malting barley market, with China almost certainly keeping a careful eye on the developments. It is worth noting that Australian barley exports rank in the top 10 exports to China by value.

Australian barley



in million tonnes	2001-2002	2002-2003	2003-2004	Difference
Production	8.3	3.3	7.3	+4.0
Domestic use	2.5	2.1	2.4	+0.3
Exports	5.3	2.3	4.8	+2.5
as malting barley	1.7	0.5	2.0	+1.5
as malt	0.6	0.6	0.6
as feed barley	3.0	0.6	2.2	+1.6


Source: ABARE

The US barley crop estimate was reduced from 6.35 to 6.13 million tonnes. North Dakota has harvested a fine crop of 6row barley, but the Western (2row) states of Idaho with 1.16 million tonnes and Montana with 0.91 million tonnes are back to last year’s low production after a hot and dry July/August. USDA reports an export sale of 55 thousand tonnes. It is assumed that is feed barley from the West Coast to Saudi-Arabia.

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