San Miguel Brewery Inc., a joint venture of San Miguel Corp. and Kirin Holdings Company Ltd. of Japan, revived plans to put up a brewery in the United States, according to its top executive.
SMB chairman Ramon Ang told reporters the company was preparing for the licensing and permitting of the US brewery. Ang announced in May 2017 plans to build a $150-million brewery in Los Angles.
“We’re in the moment, at the final stage of checking the licenses and taxes,” Ang said.
“When you put up a brewery, you want to know the taxes. Are there incentives, transfer taxes, distribution taxes, what are the taxes. We need to understand all of that before we jump to put up a brewery,” he said.
Ang said the company was hoping to get “the final on the viability” of the US investment within the year.
“We have a strong export market in the US. It’s better to for us to put up a plant there to save on the freight and hauling,” Ang said.
“At least 50 percent of the factory capacity will be coming from our export volume,” he said.
He said putting up a brewery in the US would cost $100 million.
Ang said last year the planned first SMB facility in the US would have a capacity to produce 2 million hectoliters (200 million liters) and would be situated in a 10-hectare property.
“The reason why we are going to build a brewery in the US is because the volume of exports today in America can now warrant us to put up the brewery to support that volume,” Ang said.
Ang said SMB was also pursuing an aggressive capacity expansion program domestically.
“We are looking at certain locations…to save on logistics. These are cost-cutting measures. We’re trying to cut cost so you can spend the money you save on advertising, marketing,” he said.
The company recently broke ground for a new brewery in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental, the sixth in the country, while construction of more breweries in key locations across the country were being planned.
SMB expects the capacity expansion programs and company-wide productivity initiatives to redound to higher margins and profitability, he said.
“We are looking at Asean expansion. We are looking at options,” Ang said.
SMB also has plants and facilities in Thailand, Indonesia, China, Hong Kong and Vietnam. The international plants have a combined capacity of 7.81 million hectoliters.
SMB posted a net income of P5.67 billion in the first three months, up 26 percent from P4.5 billion a year earlier.