Sapporo’s $165 million acquisition of Stone Brewing formally closed Wednesday, August 31, giving the Japanese beer maker one of many prime 10 craft breweries by quantity within the U.S. in 2021 and the 18th largest brewing operation total.
Sapporo, Japan’s oldest beer model having been based in 1876, will now start integrating operations with the San Diego craft brewery and transferring manufacturing of Sapporo’s beers for the U.S. market to amenities in Escondido, California, and Richmond, Virginia.
In asserting the shut of the transaction, first introduced on June 24, Sapporo famous that Stone’s present “operations and progress projections” can be preserved, “with no deliberate adjustments to Stone jobs.”
Sapporo U.S.A. chairman Kenny Sadai and CEO Maria Stipp will lead the mixed group. Members of Stone’s government management staff will stay of their roles and will probably be joined by Sapporo U.S.A.’s VP of company enterprise. They are going to handle all U.S. and export enterprise for Sapporo, Stone, Anchor Brewing (acquired in 2017) and Unibroue.
“Stone meets all the necessities we had been in search of in a companion for progress,” Sadai mentioned within the launch. “It has the bi-coastal breweries, best-in-class staff and a dedication to high quality identical to ours. With our complementary strengths, we’re poised for unimaginable progress.”
“Immediately is a day of celebrations right here at Stone,” Stipp added. “With Stone taking up full manufacturing of Sapporo beers within the U.S., this acquisition is in contrast to some other we’ve seen in craft. It’s probably the most uncompromising partnership we may have requested for. Including the manufacturing of Sapporo’s beers to our personal will double Stone’s present manufacturing with a staff that’s like-minded and supportive of our previous and future.”
Sapporo’s acknowledged objective is to provide 360,000 barrels of beer within the U.S. at Stone’s amenities by the shut of 2024. The corporate mentioned it might primarily double manufacturing at Stone, which produced 326,281 barrels of beer in 2021 (-2%).
Sapporo mentioned no adjustments are anticipated at Anchor in San Francisco.
Stone Distributing, which was carved out of the sale of the brewing operations, will proceed to distribute Stone’s beers. Nonetheless, the distributor will now function an unbiased wholesaler beneath the earlier possession and administration groups as a part of Stone Holdings.
Arlington Capital Advisors served because the advisory agency for Stone.
