Stadium Deal?, page-25

Article below from AFR re takeover of 4 pines.

Maybe as asinging the blues suggests,
down the track, GRB will be taken over.

GRB currently had approx 3 times the brewing capacity of 4 pines.
And of course award winning beer.

Another box........".TICK"

..............
The world's biggest beer company, Anheuser-Busch InBev, has snapped up Sydney craft beer company 4 Pines as it seeks to accelerate in a sector that is growing much faster than the stagnant mainstream beer industry.

AB InBev, which already owns the Carlton & United Breweries business in Australia that makes Victoria Bitter and Carlton Draught, announced on Friday it had acquired 4 Pines, which runs micro-breweries in Brookvale and Manly on Sydney's northern beaches.

But it will trigger the removal of 4 Pines from a 450-member Craft Beer Industry Association which earlier this year voted to exclude all the big brewers and their craft beer brands from being part of the organisation. The big players, who have been progressively buying up craft beer brands, were deemed to have too much of a leg-up because of big balance sheets and not sharing the same ethos as the entrepreneurs trying to build their businesses from the ground up. Chris McNamara, executive officer of the CBIA said on Friday the process would now start to dump 4 Pines from the group. "It definitely falls outside the guidelines," he said. "We will start the process of terminating their membership".

AB InBev wants to eventually take the 4 Pines brand to the world stage. President of AB InBev's Asia Pacific South Zone, Jan Craps, said on Friday that 4 Pines was a "truly innovative business" and would be backed by the company to help them sell more beer around Australia and globally. The purchase price wasn't disclosed.

AB InBev became the owner of CUB last year when it undertook a global merger with SAB Miller, which in late 2011 cemented a $12 billion takeover of Foster's Group, the long-time owner of CUB. CUB is the No.1 beer company in Australia, with a market share of about 46 per cent, ahead of big rival Lion, which has 42 per cent.


4 Pines was established in 2008 by the Mitchell family. Co-founder Jaron Mitchell said on Friday that all employees would retain their jobs and the Brookvale brewery would be expanding its capacity in the very near future. 4 Pines has a current production capacity of 6 million litres per annum.

The buy-out of 4 Pines continues a trend around the world of large mainstream brewers snapping up small craft brewers because that sector of the market is growing much faster than traditional, mainstream beer.

The craft beer industry in Australia is worth an estimated $740 million annually and is growing at between 15 per cent to 20 per cent per annum outstripping mainstream beer sales, which are going backwards, presenting big headaches for CUB and Lion.

Big brewers such as Lion and Asahi are no longer part of the CBIA. Lion owns craft beer brands including Little Creatures, James Squire and Furphy, while Asahi acquired Melbourne's Mountain Goat in late 2015. CUB owns craft beer brands including Fat Yak and Lazy Yak.

Lion's beer portfolio shrank on September 30 last year when it gave up the distribution rights to Corona in Australia after a complex global mega-merger between Anheuser-Busch InBev, and SABMiller. The Corona shift pushed Lion down to the No.2 player in the $15 billion Australian beer market, overtaken by CUB.

Lion revealed on August 3 that its profits had been hit by slowing mainstream beer sales.