Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Blueberry]

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/kkr-to-buy-anheusers-south-korean-brewer/?ref=global


[quoteKohlberg Kravis Roberts, the giant private equity firm, said on Thursday that it is buying Anheuser-Busch InBev�s South Korean brewery for $1.8 billion, in one of the largest leveraged buyouts announced this year.

K.K.R. beat out two other private equity firms, MBK Partners and Affinity Equity Partners, for the AB-InBev brewery, Oriental Brewery, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Oriental Brewery is South Korea�s second-largest brewer, behind only Hite Brewery, and together the two companies hold a duopoly on the country�s beer market.

As part of the deal, AB-InBev said that it will maintain a partnership with Oriental Brewery, allowing the company to distribute brands like Budweiser and Hoegaarden in South Korea. AB-InBev will retain a stake in Oriental Brewery through an earnout provision.

It will also have the right, but not the obligation, to buy back Oriental Brewery within five years under certain conditions. Those terms couldn�t be learned, though this person said that Kohlberg Kravis would receive a premium to its purchase price.

The deal is expected to close in the third quarter, subject to regulatory approval.

With the still-unsteady financing markets, private equity firms like K.K.R. have been largely shut out of their core activity, leveraged buyouts. K.K.R. was able to prevail largely because it secured committed financing for the bid from a host of lenders, including Nomura, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase and Standard Chartered, this person said.

The buyout firm also secured $300 million in seller financing from AB-InBev.

Still, private equity firms have acknowledged that unlike the boom times of 2006 and the first half of 2007, they are unable to tap into a wellspring of cheap and abundant debt. For the Oriental Brewery deal, K.K.R. will pay about 45 percent of the purchase price in equity, this person said.

In a joint press release, AB-InBev said that the sale is part of its ongoing efforts to raise money to pay for the deal that created the beer giant. InBev, based in Belgium, borrowed $45 billion when it acquired Anheuser-Busch last summer for $52 billion.

AB-InBev has spent much of its time since then identifying assets that could be sold to help pay off the debt. Yet because South Korea is seen as a valuable market � and Oriental Brewery a well-run, lean operation with steady cash-flow � AB-InBev sought to maintain ties with its soon-to-be-former subsidiary, this person said.

K.K.R.�s plans for Oriental Brewery include pouring more money into its sales and marketing efforts, as well as to bolster its presence in the premium brand space. The private equity firm had begun examining a potential bid for the brewer even before AB-InBev announced that the unit was for sale, the person briefed on the matter said.

AB-InBev said in its statement that it expects a nonrecurring capital gain of about $500 million, with immaterial impact on recurring results.

Anheuser was advised by JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Lazard and the law firms Kim & Chang and Sullivan & Cromwell. Kohlberg Kravis was advised by Goldman Sachs, HSBC, ING Group, Nomura and the law firms Bae Kim and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.[/quote]

Is "Oriental" banned on Dave's? Anyways, the brewer that makes the Cass is being bought, and their plan is to "bolster premium brand space," which I take to mean they are either gonna make a good beer. Dunno if it will be under the Cass name, but either way, it seems the company understands that making a decent beer will make them more money than costantly selling the dreck that is Cass and Hite.

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

Highly doubtful that breweries would be interested in making new mainstream beers when they make their money from flooding the local market with their existing product. Hite Prime was the best of a bad bunch and Cass 6.9 is an abomination. That still though only increased the general range of beers from 3 to 5.
I think Koreans are yet to understand that beer can taste better. The number of people who go to the franchise breweries like Castle Praha and would drink what foreign beers that are available are a substantial market but still a small minority in a country of 50 million.

[ernie]

it can't get much worse.

[Integra]

[ernie]

i said MUCH worse. it could still get worse, i guess. they could put actual piss in a bottle and sell that.

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

Cass 2X....looks pretty innocuous. Like Cafri. And by innocuous, I mean spew.

Some of the thinking behind beer and the salespitch just turns the west off. Do they still sell Hite S ?

http://english.hite.com/h_brand/html/brand_beer04.asp

The special emerald-colored packaging and 8g dietary fiber give you reason to get together with friends, lovers, and colleagues.

Doesn't really appeal for some reason...

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

Cass 2X....looks pretty innocuous. Like Cafri. And by innocuous, I mean spew.

Some of the thinking behind beer and the salespitch just turns the west off. Do they still sell Hite S ?

http://english.hite.com/h_brand/html/brand_beer04.asp

The special emerald-colored packaging and 8g dietary fiber give you reason to get together with friends, lovers, and colleagues.

Doesn't really appeal for some reason...

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

Cass 2X....looks pretty innocuous. Like Cafri. And by innocuous, I mean spew.

Some of the thinking behind beer and the salespitch just turns the west off. Do they still sell Hite S ?

http://english.hite.com/h_brand/html/brand_beer04.asp

The special emerald-colored packaging and 8g dietary fiber give you reason to get together with friends, lovers, and colleagues.

Doesn't really appeal for some reason...

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

Cass 2X....looks pretty innocuous. Like Cafri. And by innocuous, I mean spew.

Some of the thinking behind beer and the salespitch just turns the west off. Do they still sell Hite S ?

http://english.hite.com/h_brand/html/brand_beer04.asp

The special emerald-colored packaging and 8g dietary fiber give you reason to get together with friends, lovers, and colleagues.

Doesn't really appeal for some reason...

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

Cass 2X....looks pretty innocuous. Like Cafri. And by innocuous, I mean spew.

Some of the thinking behind beer and the salespitch just turns the west off. Do they still sell Hite S ?

http://english.hite.com/h_brand/html/brand_beer04.asp

The special emerald-colored packaging and 8g dietary fiber give you reason to get together with friends, lovers, and colleagues.

Doesn't really appeal for some reason...

[weatherman]

2X by cass is just a reduced alcohol concoction at 2.9%. Watery flavorless, why would one buy it?

[McGenghis]

The fact that there is a beer brand here called 'Stylish Beer' says a lot about the average Korean beer drinker.

[jdog2050]

[Blueberry]

[earthbound14]

So Hite will still taste like shite

but Cass may no longer taste like ass?

Hope so.

Will this mean Cafri will no longer be considered a good Korean beer?

God I long for the day when a Cafri makes me happi....that was bad I know, and I haven't even had any tonight