The fifth largest player on the Romanian beer market, United Romanian Breweries Bereprod (URBB), which produces the Tuborg, Carlsberg and Skol beers in Romania, is to invest 40 million dollars (30.7 million euros) for the acquisition of equipment necessary for the expansion of production capacity at its Bucharest plant.
The company was recently granted a loan of 40 million dollars by a banking consortium made up of Bank Austria Creditanstalt AG, HVB Bank Romania and Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich AG. They also received an additional loan of 10 million dollars from HVB Bank Romania. The loan repayment period is six years.
"Through the recent capital inflow, we plan to expand the production capacity of the Tuborg Romania plant, to increase our distribution power and increase the number of employees. For next year, we plan to boost investments by a further 15 million dollars, with one of our targets being to raise production capacity to 1.4 million hectolitres," announced Shachar Shaine, URBB chairman.
Seven years ago, the company built a brewery worth 55 million dollars (42 million euros) on the outskirts of Bucharest.
According to company data, between 1997 and the present, the volume of sales increased fourfold, with the capacity of the Bucharest brewery at 1.2 million hectolitres for 2004. The total amount of investment so far is in excess of 85 million dollars (65 million euros).
With a market share of around 8%, the company reported a 10% higher turnover for the first nine months of the year, despite the rainy weather this summer. The company made turnover of 44 million euros in 2003.
"With the international premium beer brands, our estimates since the beginning of the year have proved accurate. In January to September we registered a sales volume surge of around 10%. Last year, URBB saw positive growth ahead of the overall advance of the market, a trend that continued this year," said Shaine. stelian.negrea@zf.ro
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