USA/Philippines: San Miguel plans to build $150-million brewery in Los Angeles

San Miguel Brewery (SMB), a joint venture of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) (51,7%) and Kirin Holdings Co. (48.3%) is planning to build a new 2 million hectoliter brewery in Los Angeles/California. The plant is expected to cost $150 million, which is part of a total sum of $500 million for expansion projects over the next two and a half years to be spent in the U.S. and the Philippines.

SMC’s President Ramon Ang told the press at SMC’s stockholder meeting on Tuesday that existing exports to the United States would justify an own production in North America. California, where Ang plans to finalize next month the purchase of a 10-hectare property in Los Angeles, is home to 1.5 million Filipinos with a total of 3.5 million resident in the U.S.

San Miguel operates six breweries outside the Philippines in Thailand, Indonesia, China, Hong Kong and Vietnam. The company also has licensing agreements in Nepal (with Gorkha Brewery for the San Miguel brand) as well as the UK and Ireland (with Shepherd Neame for the Sunlik brand). The company currently is also bidding for Vietnam’s biggest brewer Saigon Beer Alcohol Beverage Corp (Sabeco), which is up for sale and attracts attention of major international brewing groups like AB InBevHeinekenKirin HoldingsAsahi Group HoldingsThai Beverage and Singha Asia Holding (inside.beer,  2.4.2017).

San Miguel is also exported to over 50 countries worldwide, having Taiwan, Malaysia, Korea, Singapore, Japan, US, UAE and Sudan as some of its major export markets.

In the Philippines, SMB has five production facilities strategically located across country (Bacold, Davao, Cebu, Valenzuela and Pampanga.) and is currently setting up a new one in Cagayan de Oro (inside.beer, 18.1.2017). The company has a domestic market share of more than 90% and is serving approximately 471,000 retail outlets.

Earlier in May SMB reported positive earnings for the first quarter of 2017 with net sales of PHP 25,364 million ($509m) up 9,0% from  PHP 23,267 million a year ago, income from operations with PHP 6,677 million ($134m, +10.4%, Q1 2016: PHP 6,050 ) and net income PHP 4,491 million ($90m, +11.8%, Q1 2016: PHP 4,018 million).

In 2016, SMB posted a net income of PHP 17.7 billion ($360,000m) for the total year, up 31% compared to the year before. Consolidated revenues rose 18% to PHP 97.2 billion ($1.95b) and operating income went up to PHP 27.2 billion ($550,000).

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