Anheuser-Busch InBev NV will export African beer brands including Kilimanjaro beer to its markets around the world as the Budweiser maker seeks to maximize the potential of a continent.
“There are so many very unique African brands and I think it is time to sell African beers to the greater market,” said Ricardo Tadeu, a Brazilian who moved to Johannesburg from Mexico to head up AB InBev’s African operations. “There is huge potential for these brands to be exported.”
The company will also introduce global beer brands such as Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona in African markets, Tadeu said.
Tadeu is responsible for spurring growth on a continent where AB InBev didn’t have a foothold before completing the purchase of SABMiller in September. About 65 million people are due to reach the legal drinking age by 2023, creating an opportunity for brewers, although Tadeu must also tackle slowing economic growth across some of the biggest markets. South Africa, where SABMiller first set up shop in 1895, expanded 0.3 percent in 2016, the slowest pace since 2009, while Nigeria is in recession after the collapse in oil prices hurt its biggest source of revenue.
Within the next 12 months, AB InBev plans to invest between $150 million and $200 million on two new production lines in South Africa and look for cost cutting opportunities. The company agreed to create a 1 billion-rand ($73 million) fund to support the local beer industry and protect jobs to win government approval for the SABMiller deal, one of many concessions it made around the world to secure the takeover.
AB InBev is planning a new plant in Nigeria. Sites can cost as much as $400 million, the executive said, although the brewery will not follow Heineken NV, the world’s second-largest brewer, into other West African countries such as Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
At the same time, AB InBev doesn’t have plans to reduce its presence in any of the 31 African markets in which it now operates.
“We are prioritizing what we need to do in Africa, rather than trying to find new things,” Tadeu said.
Comments
Post a Comment