VietNamNet Bridge – Carlsberg, the Danish brewery, shows its determination to buy another 13 percent of stakes of Vietnamese Habeco, one of the two domestic breweries. Meanwhile, Sabeco, the other of the two, has been looking for someone to become its strategic shareholder.

The Habeco – Carlsberg predestined affinity

Right from the start, when setting foot on Vietnam, Carlsberg targeted the Hanoi Brewery Company (Habeco). The move by the big guy to pour capital into a well known operational enterprise was described as the first step in its plan to become the strategic shareholder of the second biggest brewery in South East Asia by 2008, when Habeco makes IPO (initial public offering).

In an official visit to Denmark in September 2009, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung attended an important event – the signing ceremony of a memorandum of understanding under which the government of Vietnam allows Carlsberg buying more Habeco’s shares to obtain up to 30 percent of the Vietnamese brewery company’s stakes.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) earlier this month released a notice allowing Habeco to sell another 13 percent of its stakes at 50,015 dong per share, which is equal to the average IPO price in 2008, a step which makes the commitment realistic.

In its argument, MOIT said the sale of more stakes to the strategic shareholder – Carlsberg – would bring benefits to the State as a shareholder, and help push up the development of Habeco.

With the deal of buying another 13 percent of Habeco’s stakes, Carlsberg would hold 30 percent of stakes of Habeco, the proportion high enough to make Habeco eligible for receiving support from Carlsberg in its global development strategy.

And another question has just been raised that if Carlsberg would raise its ownership ratio in Habeco to 49 percent? The answer has not been found, but experts believe that this would happen, sooner or later.

In 2011, with the output of 579.98 million liters of beer, Habeco became the second biggest beer producer in Vietnam, holding 22 percent of the market share, just to Sabeco.

Meanwhile, Carlsberg made 232.6 million liters from its breweries and from the companies whose it was a shareholder, not including the joint venture with Habeco. With the figure, Carlsberg held nine percent of the market share, ranking the fourth in the market.

However, there would be some changes in the positions in the market after Carlsberg wraps up the plan to acquire 30 percent of stakes in Habeco.

An expert in the business field said that though holding 30 percent of stakes, Carlsberg would retain the existing Habeco’s brands, while it would apply the modern corporate governance technology. The same way has been followed by the Danish brewery in other regional countries, including the companies where it holds 100 percent of stakes.

Sabeco still expecting suitable partner

Leading the domestic market, outdistancing other rivals far behind in terms of the sales, Sabeco can hold its head up in any negotiations.

In 2011, the giant sold 1.228 billion liters of beer, holding 46.4 percent of the Vietnamese market share. The figure was approximately equal to the output of the three other big guys – Habeco, ABP (the owner of Heineken, Tiger brands) and Carlsberg. Sabeco is still striving to increase its output to 2 billion liters of beer by 2015.

This explains why Sabeco always remains a “hot name” for investors to consider when drawing up their business expansion plans. At least three big brewery groups in the world have expressed their intentions to become strategic shareholders of Sabeco, namely the Dutch Heineken, Japanese Asahi and the US SAB Miller.

DDDN