"Heineken" completed takeover of MB brewer

- Multinational company "Heineken" has announced that it completed the takeover of MB Brewery from Novi Sad - said Chief Executive of "Heineken Import" in Serbia, Nenad Šarenac, yesterday (February 19, 2008).

He said said that the new company would be called "Brauerei MB", but he did not specify total value of that takeover. Šarenac said that one-sided declaration of independence of Kosovo would not have influence on the projected investments of that company in Serbia.

- We will continue with the planned activities without any disturbances - said he and added that the merger with Turkish company "Efes", the owner of Pančevo-based "Weifert" and Zaječar-based brewer, should be completed in few weeks.

Heineken started takeover of MB Rodić brewer in December 2007. MB Rodić is the brewer with the fourth largest beer sales in Serbia, 7% of the market and annual capacity of 1.5m hectoliters of beer.

According to the data provided by the Business Registry Agency, the founder's capital of MB brewery amounts to 67.6m EUR. Dutch "Haineken" and Turkish "Efes" started mergers of breweries in Serbia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan at the end of January and they should be finished in the first half of year 2008.

After that, "Haineken" will own 72%, while "Efes" will own 28% of the merged breweries in Serbia.

Heineken Group is the owner of more than 115 breweries in over 65 countries. Total volume of sales of that group is 132m hl, which makes it the fourth largest beer manufacturer in the world. Its incomes in 2006 amounted to 12 billion EUR, while net profit was 930m EUR.