Ursus breweries, assessed at 390m euros

For the first time, a beer multinational, Ursus Breweries, has published a report where it puts its Romanian breweries at more than 390m euros, an extremely rare piece of information in the industry considering that in recent years multinationals have assessed plants they bought, but have never discussed the value of their own portfolio.

The information came up as Ursus Breweries launched its tender offer for Bere Azuga, a company listed on the stock exchange, with this type of deals requiring higher transparency from the part of the bidder. According to the same source, the value of the company’s assets in the first six months rose by approximately 30m euros.

Stephan Maria Weber, chairman of Ursus Breweries, states this assessment does not include the value of brands, though. “The company’s rising value reflects investments in production facilities,” Weber told ZF. Ursus Breweries, with 325m-euro turnover in 2008, this year has finalised investments worth above 90m euros.

Ursus Breweries, the producer of Ursus and Timisoreana beer, in the first half of this year registered profit worth 49.7m RON (11.7m euros), down 42% from the year ago figure. The company reached net income worth 85.8m RON (23.3m euros) in the first half of 2008. In the same period, the company’s turnover went up by 14.4% in RON, to 621.7m RON (147m euros). In euros, though, turnover remained flat from a year ago.

Weber accounts for these differences by the significantly rising raw material prices in the first half of 2009. “As many of our production costs are related to imports and influenced by the exchange rate trend, these costs were partly reflected in product prices, which led to higher turnover. The difference between profit figures in the two periods can be accounted for by the fact that this increase in production costs did not come at the same time with a price hike, which eroded part of the profit,” Weber explained.

The official added costs related to investments to boost the production capacity of Ursus Breweries’ plants also impacted profitability.