Rough times prompt changes at Brau Union

Brau Union yesterday announced officially that four of its management team members had been replaced, including chief executive Werner Schneidhofer.

The new head of Brau Union Romania, a branch of Dutch Heineken Group, will arrive during what are rough times for the company, after losing market share last year, which in turn caused it to close production facilities.

“Mr. Edwin Botterman has a lot of experience of top management positions inside Heineken. I am convinced his experience and the professionalism of the team in Romania will ensure Brau Union’s consolidation of its leading position on the beer market,” says Werner Schneidhofer, the former chief executive of Brau Union who has been at the helm for the last five years. Botterman has been working for Heineken since 1987, and has been chief executive and chief financial officer in various countries.

The new names in Brau Union’s team are Marius Melesteu, former marketing manager for Zapp Mobile who now replaces Janos Velkey in that position; Diana Ghita, the new human resources manager, who worked previously for Shell Gas Romania and Tabco-Campofrio; and Willem de Jonge, currently a packaging manager at Hertogenbosch brewery in the Netherlands, who will replace Christian Eilenberger as technical director.

Brau Union lost market share last year from 32% to 28%. Its sales fell in volume from 4.1 million hectolitres in 2003 to 3.6 million hectolitres in 2004. It gave up a total production capacity of 1.2 million hectolitres a year, after producing 5 million hectolitres in 2002.

As a result of the fall in sales Brau Union Romania saw itself forced to close its factories in Reghin and Arad and is about to close a similar facility in Bucharest, the Grivita brewery. The closing of Grivita may be due to the measures taken by Bucharest City Hall that has imposed restricted access for heavy trucks in central Bucharest and the announced building of a bridge in the Basarab area that would be close to the facility. As a result, Brau Union will only have four production facilities left: Miercurea Ciuc, Constanta, Hateg and Craiova.
stelian.negrea@zf.ro