gage road brewery shares, page-4

Also, my previous little rant didn't even mention the [mostly] HUGE benefit of having as a core shareholder - a little outfit called "Woolworths"!!!

Whilst it does give a "gorilla" a big say in our [medium-term] destiny [let's get that on the record], I don't believe Woolies are outright evil and assuming we can deliver what they want, ie, good beer and the right price, we get:

1) - access to lovely deep pockets to help turbo charge our financing needs during these early years,
2) - a dream distribution network
3) - a stable shareholder-gorilla, allowing management to focus on the actual business, not who they're going to be working for next week,
4) awesome industry and business contacts and a lot of market respect.

To be honest, the Woolies connection has probably driven GRB ahead by more that a decade in just 2-3yrs - the value of their distribution network is pure gold to GRB - getting access to that type of network, independently, would take many years of hard work - for us, a smallish brewer, it's in the bag!

Finally, every week, of every month, of every year that goes by, we also strategically gain more and more independent standing in the market as a business - people get to know and want our OWN brands and of course Woolies needs a reliable brewer for their own stuff and importantly, they are VERY committed to the brewing and hotel sectors, so it's a genuine two-way relationship. Woolies has been a tremendous "force multiplier" for GRB.

As ever, it's all just my opinions and yes, DYOR!