Word: harbin
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...company later fell into the hands of the Soviet Red Army. Only in the 1950s, after Stalin ordered the return of Chinese assets, did managers from the mainland take control; in the famine years that followed, they brewed the first Chinese beer from corn. These days the Harbin Brewery Group is a pioneer yet again. Having listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in June 2002, it has become the target of China's first hostile takeover, pitting the world's two biggest brewers against one another in a battle to dominate the largest beer market anywhere...
...Last week, Anheuser-Busch, the world's No. 1 brewer by volume, announced its intention to buy 29% of Harbin Brewery. SABMiller, A-B's nemesis (formed in July 2002 when South African Breweries bought out the Wisconsin-based Miller Brewing Company), retaliated by declaring that it would launch a $391 million hostile takeover bid for Harbin. The prize is a company that made a profit of just $15 million last year but that offers a coveted entr?e into the beer-loving northeast of China...
...foreigners. That changed in November 2002, when the government allowed shares still held by listed state-run companies to be sold to foreigners. One of the first to test the new regulation was SABMiller, which paid more than $86 million last year for its initial 29.6% stake in Harbin Brewery. That type of deal represents "a trend toward letting foreigners take control of enterprises that the government doesn't consider a strategic industry," says Carl Walter, managing director of JP Morgan China...
...Despite the abundant risks of investing in China, it's not hard to see why SABMiller and A-B are so keen to get their hands on Harbin Brewery. Recent years have seen lackluster sales in the U.S., whereas China has emerged as the world's last great growth market for beer. With SABMiller already owning a stake in another large brewery in a neighboring province, A-B saw the danger that its arch rival might become the region's dominant player...
...That fear heightened in March, when SABMiller bid for an additional 29% of Harbin Brewery's government-owned stock. That would have given SABMiller control of the company and its premium brand, Hapi?potentially a national rival to Budweiser, which A-B also markets as a premium beer...