Russian vodka producer Synergy said it signed a one-year contract with Stallone, who will appear in television and newspaper advertisements for Russian Ice vodka, starting Sept. 1.

Sources valued the deal at $1million.

Stallone - whose film character John Rambo killed Soviet troops by the dozen in Afghanistan and whose Rocky Balboa humiliated Soviet boxer Ivan Drago - will pitch the product under the slogan: “There is a bit of Russian in all of us.”

The BACARDI Store provides an unparalleled experience for spirits consumers - with its premium, sleek design in keeping with the Bacardi image - featuring the Bacardi portfolio of products at duty-free prices and for the first time, a variety of high-end BACARDI branded accessories including hats, shirts, gym bags, umbrellas, towels and other items not available for purchase in any other retail store in the world. Also available at this one-of-a-kind store are premium spirits and branded items from other products in the Bacardi portfolio including Grey Goose vodka, Bobmay Sapphire gin, Dewar’s Scotch whisky and Cazadores tequila.

The BACARDI Store, just steps away from the cruise ship port and historic Nassau Straw Market, is expected to bring new excitement to the tourist district of Bay Street which is currently experiencing a revitalization effort.

“For many years, I have dreamed of being an active participant in the revitalization of Nassau and in particular Bay Street,” said Juan Bacardi, owner of Bristol Group of Companies Limited. “With the grand opening of The BACARDI Store, I am very excited to lead the charge of the revitalization of the Bay Street business and tourist districts with such a high-end offering. With the clout of the BACARDI name and its international appeal, we’re confident this store will serve as a ‘gateway’ to the east end of Bay Street.”

“With the opening of The BACARDI Store — a truly unique retail destination — we create a visitor experience that showcases the rich history, heritage and passion of the Bacardi spirits portfolio - for both visitors and those who call Nassau home,” said John Esposito, president and chief executive officer of Bacardi U.S.A., Inc. and Bacardi North America, a region which includes the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and The Bahamas. “To commemorate the grand opening of The BACARDI Store we are pleased to announce the international launch of BACARDI Reserva Limitada. This limited edition product is blended from our rarest rums that have been aged in small mature oak barrels for 10 to 16 years. Nassau is the first place this rum will be sold outside of Puerto Rico, where it is produced.”

“Nassau and Bay Street have something very special - as this themed retail outlet is the only branded retail outlet in the world designed solely for the sale of Bacardi products and accessories,” added Joaquin Bacardi, president and chief executive officer of Bacardi Corporation in Puerto Rico and a fifth generation family member who is responsible for managing the day-to-day business operations and marketing for the entire Caribbean region and the islands of the Atlantic.

To celebrate the opening of The BACARDI Store, customers have been able to experience and enjoy a variety of daily in-store product specials and unique tasting events hosted by Willie Ramos, master brand ambassador for BACARDI rums, who has been in Nassau all week from the BACARDI production facility in Puerto Rico, the largest premium rum distillery in the world. Mr. Ramos has been sharing his deep knowledge of rum production, history and the unique tasting aspects of various types of rums with both consumers and hospitality professionals.

Representatives of Bahamas tourism and the Nassau tourism development programs are especially pleased with the establishment of The BACARDI Store.

Bahamas Minister of Tourism and Aviation Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace is enthusiastic. “The fact that a company of the reputation of Bacardi would establish a retail store of this quality in Nassau speaks volumes of their faith in the destination as a premier tourist attraction with the ability to produce solid business. We value our partnership with Bacardi and Bristol, and for our part, we are pulling out all the stops to revitalize our product to provide a high quality visitor experience overall,” Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace said.

Frank Comito of the Nassau Tourism and Development Board lauded Bay Street’s newest commercial entity. “We are working keenly towards the redevelopment of Bay Street to reestablish its reputation as one of the premier tourist shopping destinations of the world. Clearly, a facility like The BACARDI Store will contribute much to cementing that image and providing real value for visitors to Nassau. The Bacardi brand is known and respected worldwide.”

The two-story 3,300 square feet themed retail outlet is the only branded retail outlet in the world designed for the sale of Bacardi products and branded accessories. It will be open six days a week from 9:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. and managed by Bahamian-owned and operated Bristol, the Bahamian distributor of BACARDI rums and other fine, premium and super premium spirits in the Bacardi portfolio.

In addition to The BACARDI Store, Bacardi products currently available for sale in The Bahamas - in retail stores, restaurants, bars and clubs - will continue to be available at these locations.

Source: The Bahamas Weekly

AB has reported stagnant sales in the last few years. InBev, since its formation in 2004 out of the AmBev and Interbrew merger, has risen to become the world’s second biggest brewer.

Clearly InBev is doing something right, and if that can rub off onto AB then the shareholders - already clinking glasses over the $70 a share deal - will have even more cause to celebrate.

Having a leg on each side of the Atlantic can only bring benefits to the enlarged brewer, to be called Anheuser-Busch InBev. Analysts have stressed the importance of brewers controlling big brands in today’s market environment, where supermarkets and retailers now dominate sales.

Combining Budweiser, Stella, and other major names in the beer world, the new global firm would have revenues of $36.4 bln (€26.6 bln) and EBITDA of $10.7 bln (€7.8 bln).

Rather than viewing the deal fuzzily through the bottom of a glass, fans should be celebrating the fact it is to be the new company’s flagship brand and is all set for global expansion. This means their beer-drinking brothers in hitherto untapped markets will get a taste of American-style Bud.

“But what if they change something?”, Bud fans will wail.

It doesn’t look likely. Fixing what ain’t broke makes no sense. Carlos Brito, CEO-to-be of Anheuser-Busch InBev, is too shrewd a businessman to tinker with the biggest brand in the AB fold.

He has already pledged to keep all brewing operations in the US operations, and St Louis, Missouri will remain the US HQ. He has even promised to stick with the much-loved marketing strategy that has seen lizards grace small screens everywhere and made ‘Wasssuup’ a household chant.

Although savings of $1.5bln are anticipated by 2011, commentators are not expecting an employee headcount reduction since the two entities presently operate in different global spheres. Rather, they expect savings to come from shoring off non-brewing activities like packaging and theme parks.

(Their jobs may look secure, but AB employees might want to stack up the free crates while they can. Brito runs InBev on a perk-free basis. Reportedly, he does not even have a company car.)

So if consumers and employees need not panic, who should?

As with any major deal, competitors start to look at their own vulnerabilities, and wonder if they might just need to team up to have a better change against the new giant.

Or they may seek to jump into any void they can identify.

In the case of Pabst Brewing Company, that void is in the hearts of patriotic beer-drinkers. It has already started calling itself “the last of the famous iconic US brewers to be fully independent and American-owned”.

It has also kicked off a survey to ask consumers if American ownership flagged on the label will influence their purchasing decisions.

It could swing it presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who called the prospect of AB being sold to a Belgian firm a ’shame’. (Though he’s not courting Belgian voters, is he?).

But in the great, global scheme of things Anheuser Busch InBev will have the greater clout.

Even if Budweiser actually has its roots in the Czech brand Budvar

Source: Beverage Daily

Anheuser Busch Cos. said early Monday it had agreed to a sweetened $52 billion takeover bid from InBev, creating the world’s largest brewer and heading off what was shaping up as an acrimonious fight for the maker of Budweiser and Bud Light beers.

The deal, which would also create the third-largest consumer product company, will be called Anheuser-Busch InBev.

The Anheuser-Busch board accepted the higher takeover offer Sunday night from Belgian-based brewer InBev SA, according to a joint press release.

“I think we’re going to bring the best of both companies into one company, our footprint with their amazing brands,” InBev CEO Carlos Brito said in a video posted on InBev’s Web site.

For InBev, the maker of Stella Artois and Beck’s, the deal gives an aggressive company an iconic beer brand — Budweiser — to sell into emerging markets such as China and Brazil where it has already established a firm footprint.

InBev is currently the world’s second-largest beer-maker, just behind SABMiller. Swallowing Anheuser-Busch sees it leap ahead, capturing half of the U.S. beer market and a fifth of China and Russia.

Brito will be chief executive officer of the combined company. Shareholders will receive $70 a share, a $5 increase over the offer Anheuser-Busch rejected in June.

Anheuser-Busch shares rose 79 cents to $67.29 in morning trading.

It wasn’t immediately clear how long approval might take. Several Missouri politicians have expressed concerns about the merger — especially how it would affect the approximate 6,000 people employed by Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis.

It also drew the attention of Mexico’s Grupo Modelo. Anheuser-Busch also owns a 50 percent share in Grupo Modelo, which said in a statement Monday that its relationship with Anheuser-Busch gives it consent rights to the deal.

“Our agreement with Anheuser-Busch was carefully constructed to ensure we have a definitive say in who our partner is. We are confident that our agreement, which is governed by Mexican law, gives us the right to decide whether or not to consent to the potential acquisition of Anheuser-Busch by InBev,” Grupo Modelo said in a statement.

InBev said it plans to use St. Louis as its North American headquarters, and that it will keep open all 12 of Anheuser-Busch’s North American breweries.

It has not said whether it will cut more jobs on top of the 1,185 positions Anheuser-Busch already said it wants to shed — mostly by offering early retirement.

It will, however, sell off “noncore assets” from both companies to raise some $7 billion to finance the deal. It will also borrow $45 billion and may sell shares to raise another $9.8 billion.

Shareholders won’t see much joy in the short-term. InBev warned of lower dividends and no benefit to earnings per share until 2010.

But it is promising longer-term rewards in a stalling market. Beer sales in North America and Europe are flat as drinkers turn to wine and spirits. InBev has compensated by finding new drinkers in Latin America, eastern Europe and Asia that will now be handed a cold Bud.

InBev cost synergies of at least $1.5 billion a year by 2011 over three years. Most of that will come from managing the supply chain better. InBev’s sharp eye on costs — which forces managers to justify every cent spent — will also play a major part.

Monday’s kiss-and-make-up announcement from both companies came after several weeks of guns blazing. InBev said on June 11 it wanted to buy Anheuser-Busch, which distributes its beers in the U.S.

Anheuser-Busch shrugged off the first offer as two low, prompting InBev to seek the removal of all Anheuser’s board members. Anheuser counterattacked, calling InBev’s bid an “illegal scheme” because the company failed to mention that it owned a brewery in Cuba.

Few products are associated with America as much as Budweiser, which its owner calls the King of Beers. Its Clydesdale horses are fixtures of Super Bowl ads, and even the label is red, white and blue, with an eagle swooping through the “A.”

To some in St. Louis, losing Anheuser-Busch to a foreign buyer meant losing a little bit of history. From college buildings to theme parks to offices to the stadium where the Cardinals play baseball, the Busch name is virtually everywhere in the Gateway City.

Despite more than 600 years of brewing beer in Belgium, InBev is more rootless. Although based in Leuven, Belgium, it is run by a Brazilian management team and sells most of its beer outside Europe.

It owns a massive portfolio of local brands from Siberia to Argentina that rarely travel. InBev has only recently started to push its two best-known brands — Stella Artois and Beck’s — more widely.

Source: AP Business Writer Christopher Leonard wrote from St. Louis, and Associated Press writer Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.

• Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc.: http://www.anheuser-busch.com
• InBev SA: http://www.inbev.com
• Savebudweiser.com: http://savebudweiser.com
• SaveAP.com: http://saveab.com

The soon to be instated new chief executive officer of Coca-Cola is expected to kick off his tenure of the role with a number of acquisitions, according to news reports.

Group chief operating officer Muhtar Kent, who will take up the new position from 1 July, says that bottled water and tea brands were increasingly important to the company and would influence future buys, the Reuters news agency has said.

"You will see us grow organically as well as through targeted acquisitions," he was quoted as saying by the agency.

Although Kent failed to specify any particular targets or markets the company would look to enter, the report suggested that the company would make smaller purchases on a country-to-country basis.

Cobra may quit Poland plan for UK production

In a reverse of recent processor behavior, production of the UK-based Cobra Beer brand could be returning to the country from Poland, according to news reports.

The Indo-Asian News Service says that India-born owner Karan Bilimoria is to reverse his 2005 decision to outsource production of the brand to Eastern Europe apparently due to the strength of the Polish Zloty against pound sterling.

The company estimates that it may save about £7m by 2010 by brewing one million hectolitres of the beer in the UK, according to the report.

A number of leading food and beer manufacturers have in recent years moved their production out of Western European counties to their Eastern neighbours, citing local currency benefits, though such an action by Cobra could begin a shift in this pattern.

Original Source: Beverage Daily

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Just as I talked about before, even though I don’t need a load just quite yet it is always good to look into future business opportunity’s. I want to make sure that my credit score and debit is on track, so that in the future when I am ready to open my awesome bar in Santa Monica I can just get that loan direct with no problems.

Many people rack up loads of debit to credit card company’s. I know when I turned 21 and hit the bars and clubs, drink were flowing freely. But there is a price to pay latter on down the road! With maybe $20K in debit, one might have to consolidate to make payments easier.

What am I saying, go take out a loan, and party like a rock star!

Practical, simplistic, and elegant, Aisacan™ is poised to revolutionize the beverage industry.

This hybrid package consists of a highly decorated aluminum or all plastic laminated film plus rigid molded neck, cap and bottom.
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