BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

28/12/2007

Heineken Buys Syabar to Expand in Belarus, Fuel Sales

By Loveday Morris

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Heineken NV bought Syabar Brewing Co., the owner of Belarus's second-largest beer brand, for an undisclosed priced to bulk up in a region where markets are expanding more quickly than in western Europe.

The purchase will add to profit next year, Amsterdam-based Heineken said today in a statement. It's buying the beermaker's Cypriot parent company from a group led by Detroit Investments Ltd. (Cyprus) and from the World Bank's International Finance Corp. arm.

Heineken, whose brands include Poland's Zywiec, sells more than 40 percent of its beer in central and eastern Europe. A 12 percent gain in the amount of beer sold in the region in the first half helped the brewer, the largest in the Netherlands, to raise its forecast for this year's profit in July. Sales climbed 1 percent in western Europe on the same basis.

``Belarus is a fast-growing market, and this will give us an excellent platform from which to grow the Heineken brand as well as our imported Russian brands,'' Nico Nusmeier, the Dutch beermaker's president for central and eastern Europe, said in the statement.

Heineken shares fell 8 cents, or 0.2 percent, to 44.32 euros at 9:20 a.m. in Amsterdam. They have gained 23 percent this year, beating the 14 percent climb by industry leader InBev NV, the maker of Beck's lager.

Belarus's beer market is expanding by at least 10 percent a year, Heineken said. Sales at Syabar probably will jump 62 percent to 600,000 hectoliters (503,200 barrels) this year, the statement shows. The Belarusian company brews Bobrov beer, the country's second-largest brand, and recently introduced a premium beer under its own name.

Source:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aPb3lHTWYOvE&refer=europe