During a visit to Australian enterprises, on July 24 Jan Craps, CEO of CBU had a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue and expressed the desire to acquire stakes of Saigon Beer - Alcohol - Beverage Corporation (Sabeco) and Hanoi Beer Alcohol And Beverage Joint Stock Corporation (Habeco).
CBU is planning to expand the brewery in Binh Duong province and would like to become a strategic investor of Sabeco and Habeco after their capital divestments by the State in this year, Jan Craps said.
CBU was established in 1907 and is one of Australia's famous brewery. It is currently accounting for 47 per cent of Australia’s beer market shares. In October, 2016 CBU became a subsidiary of Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch InBev Company (AB InBev). In the past, AB InBev was considered as one of the seven biggest breweries among Heineken, Asahi, Thai Beverage Pcl,…and expressed its desire to acquire Sabeco's stakes.
Recently, in a meeting in the mid July, Ministry of Industry and Commerce announced plans to divest out of the two leading beverage companies – Sabeco and Habeco right in 2017.
Habeco has now signed a consultancy contract for solutions of capital divestment under the form of a public tender with the joint venture of Bao Viet Securities Joint Stock Company and Vietnam Valuation and Finance Consultancy Company.
Sabeco has also signed a consultancy contract for solutions of capital divestment under the form of a public tender among consultancy companies. The details of solutions of capital divestment will be submitted to the Ministry of Industry and Trade by the end of July.
The State owns 89.59 per cent of stake in Sabeco and 82 per cent of stake in Habeco. It was to sell the State’s entire stake of 82 per cent at Habeco in 2016 and would collect approximately VND9 trillion (equivalent to US$395 million). For Sabeco, the stake sales were to be implemented in two phases, 53.59 per cent of the charter capital in 2016, equivalent to VND24 trillion (equivalent to US$1.05 billion) and the remaining 36 per cent of the charter capital would be sold in 2017. However, these plans were missed.
In domestic beer market share, the two companies account for 60 per cent of market share, of which Sabeco accounts for 40 per cent.
It is expected that beer consumption in Viet Nam will reach four billion liters in 2017, making Vietnam become the leading beer consuming country in Southeast Asia.
