San Miguel Brewery (SMB) has reinforced its intention to build a new two million hectoliter brewery on the US West coast. The company already announced last year to invest $150 million as part of $500 million expansion project and said at that time it was in the final stage of buying a 10-hectare property in Los Angel s. (inside.beer, 1.6.2017)
The Philippine Star quoted SMB chairman Ramon Ang on Thursday saying that the company can start construction “as soon as we get the final numbers on the viability.”
“What are the taxes, is there an incentive for taxes, are there transfer taxes and distribution taxes? We need to understand all of that before we jump to put up a brewery,” he said.
San Miguel targets the 4 million Filipino Americans, which are estimated to live in the United States, especially in the Western United States and metropolitan areas like in Los Angeles. Filipino Americans constitute the second-largest population of Asian Americans in the United States, and the largest population of Overseas Filipinos.
“The US is a big export market for us. It’s better for us to put up a plant there to save on freight and hauling,” Ang said. And he continued: “We are looking at several location to save on logistics. This is part of our cost cutting measures. We’re trying to cut costs so you can spend the money you save on advertising on TV, multimedia, and other marketing initiatives,” Ang said.
After having reported favorable results from its operations in Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, the company is also looking at setting up new breweries in other ASEAN countries. “We are looking at several locations to save on logistics. This is part of our cost cutting measures. We’re trying to cut costs so you can spend the money you save on advertising on TV, multimedia, and other marketing initiatives,” Ang was quoted as saying.
San Miguel is one of the largest brewing groups in the word. The brewery has attracted the interest of several of the major players in the market. Kirin Holdings from Japan owns since 2009 an interest in the brewing group. The conglomerate has recently bundeled its total food, beer and liquor business into a single entity, a move which makes a hostile takeover harder and more unlikely. (inside.beer, 7.11.2017) In addition it enables the group to raise as much as $3.6 billion by selling between 20 and 30% of its merged food and drinks unit in the fourth quarter. The money is needed “to grow and remain bullish on this sector,” Ang said in April. (inside.beer, 10.4.2018)
San Miguel Brewery , the leading brewer form the Philippines should not be mixed up with Grupo Mahou-San Miguel, the leading brewer in Spain. The Spanish brewer resulted from the Manila Agreement from 1953, which allowed Spanish company La Segarra to set up a brewery in Spain and use the San Miguel brand name. San Miguel Brewer from the Philippines, which initially held a 20% equity share via its Hong Kong subsidiary, sold its shares in 2000 to Groupe Danone, to form Spain’s largest brewer, the Mahou-San Miguel Group with 16.1 million hectoliters in 2016.
