Heineken to keep Namibia Breweries Limited on the Namibian Stock Exchange despite merging with Distell
NAMIBIA – Heineken, the second largest brewer in the world, intends to keep Namibia Breweries Limited (NBL) on the Namibian Stock Exchange, with 40% of the shares remaining in Namibian hands, Dolf van den Brink, the Managing Director, and chairperson of the Works Council of Heineken NV (Netherlands) said in an exclusive interview with NMH.
Namibia Breweries (NBL) shareholders had recently earned a total of N$5.4 billion in special dividends attributable to Heineken’s acquisition of controlling interest in NamBrew stock.
The company had been majority owned by Namibians, but after the recent acquisition, the Dutch Brewery has become NamBrew’s majority shareholder and owns 100% of NBL Investment Holdings (NBLIH), which owns 59.4% of NamBrew’s shares on the Namibian Stock Exchange (NSX).
Mr. van den Brink sees the Heineken investment in the form of a successful acquisition of the majority stake in NBL as a vote of confidence in Namibia as a stable country.
“We are just as proud of this company and its heritage with its beautiful brands.” Heineken doesn’t want to change the recipes and certainly respects the German “Reinheitsgebot” applied by NBL,” he explained when asked what Namibians proudly consider as Namibian legacy.
“For this reason, Heineken wants to continue to employ the company’s master brewers, who would have shaped these brands. It would indeed make sense to open more export opportunities for the Namibian brands.”
“We have been a major investor in the Namibian breweries for more than 20 years,” said van den Brink, explaining that Heineken is proud to be a major investor in South Africa and Namibia in particular.
He reminded the public that at heart Heineken is still a family company that thinks long-term in every investment and assured the Namibian public that Heineken will not move to another country even though the company was consolidated into one unit with Distell under HEINEKEN Beverages in the region.
Instead, the brewery will seek to relocate part of Distell’s manufacturing capacity to Namibia and create jobs in the process in line with its strategy and plans to expand the export market for NBL and Distell products.
In a brief analysis of Heineken’s financial report, its turnover for the entire year 2022 was 34.7 million euros as the company’s sales grew organically by 21.2%, with total consolidated volume increasing by 6.4% and net sales per hectolitre by 13.9%.
The numbers put NBL’s total reported revenue of almost N$2.4 billion (about €125 million) into perspective. Although this was up 20.6% year-on-year in February 2023, it seems fair to expect NBL to essentially contribute around 0.35% to Heineken sales as the group converts in a day and a half what the NBL implements in a year.
NBL is also investing heavily in being a data-driven company to enhance its business intelligence (BI) competency and reduce time to insights.
The brewery chose Keyrus, a company backed by its strong track record of implementing world-class business intelligence solutions.
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