Australia: Coopers Brewery’s beer sales continued their growth increasing 13.6% on last year

Mr. Glenn Cooper, Coopers’ Chairman, delivered the annual financial report and then opened the floor for discussions on the company’s performance.
He described the past financial year as “a defining moment” in the history of Coopers Brewery LTD at 144th Coopers Brewery Annual General Meeting, which took place on November 30, 2006.

Net profit after tax was A$12.7 million under the new international accountancy rules, compared to the previous year of A$13.65 million, after booking costs associated with their successful takeover response of A$8 million.

Equity decreased A$10.4 million after taking into account A$14.8 million in repayment of capital to shareholders who participated in the share buy-back during the year. This equated to 4.26% of the company’s capital.

Beer sales continued their growth increasing 13.6% on last year in a relatively flat total beer market in Australia.

The performance of their subsidiary, premium beverages, with its presence in the states outside South Australia has continued to grow with premium beverages increasing a whopping 34.6%. This has been due to the two elements: a massive discounting venture by Lion Nathan, resulting in some of the cheapest beer in Australia, and a strategic decision by management to not follow those prices, and maintain the quality image of their products.

Sales of Budweiser increased 96.2% over last year. Two new products were released – coopers premium light and coopers premium lager. While the light beer market is most competitive, it is in decline in Australia some 10%, however, the light is holding its position.
The new premium lager is performing well and showed a 73.9% increase on the former coopers draught, which it replaced. The licensed brewed soft drink, birell, recorded an increase of 3.5% on the previous year.

Exports
Exports grew 35.3%. The company expanded outlets in the USA and entered new markets in Brazil and Chile.
Coopers sparkling ale and the new premium lager are now a permanent item in some 786 outback steakhouses in all states in the USA, so, another jump in sales is expected.

Home brew
Whilst the Australian market continued to decline as a result of the strong economic environment and maturity of the market, Coopers maintained its strong market share of 70%. This last financial year saw the release of a new home brew product “mexican cerveza”, contributing to an increase in total home brew sales of 4.9% with export sales increasing 20 % v last year.
Miscellaneous home brew accessories sales also increased 14.9% v last year. Morgans brewing company continued to trade profitably contributing to the consolidated result.

Malt extract
Malt extract sales declined 8.2% due to reduced usage amongst major customers and conversion of bulk supply to canned supply for Morgans. Subsequent to the end of the 2005-2006 financial year a new supply agreements have been confirmed for Arnott’s and a major Asian manufacturer.

Birell
Birell sales increased 3.5% through traditional grocery channels.

Operations
On the operations side Coopers continue to grow and improve their manufacturing facilities. A new state of the art khs bottle rinser and filler were installed which has the capacity to fill up to 1200 bottles per minute.
They chose to run their production line at around 800-900 bottles per minute and also purchased an additional 15,000 new 50 litre kegs to keep up with the increased bulk beer sales, which by the way grew 14.7%.

Mr. Glenn Cooper concluded by expressing sincere thanks to those shareholders who bravely showed their loyalty, to all directors of the board, in particular to the managing director, Dr. Tim Cooper, for the job very well done over an extremely difficult year.

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