Intercultural Business News

Nobody is quite sure exactly when the “reassuringly expensive” Belgian beer morphed into “wife-beater” but the shockingly rapid decline of Stella Artois from premium lager to tipple of choice for binge drinkers is the sort of salutary tale that keeps marketing types awake at night.

Long gone was the bucolic advertising image of French peasants licking their lips over the rare prospect of an ice-cold glass of Stella Artois. Instead, the brand had become associated with slabs of beer cans piled high in supermarket aisles as part of extremely cheap promotions.

Stella Artois sees big gains in British market

But the latest sales figures out yesterday suggest that the nightmare may be coming to an end. Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s biggest brewer with brands that include Budweiser and Beck’s, said that it had won market share in the UK beer market as a result of “the resurgence of Stella Artois”.

The brewing behemoth, created from last year’s marriage of InBev of Belgium and Anheuser-Busch of the US, revealed that UK sales volumes of the Stella brand, which have been in sharp decline since the smoking ban, grew by 6.6 per cent in the second quarter of the year and by 3.7 per cent in the first half.

Read More>The Times Online

A wealthy Russian oil financier is set to scoop a £138 million payout after the takeover of Emerald Energy by China’s Sinochem.

Michael Kroupeev, Emerald’s biggest shareholder, will receive the cash in exchange for his 29 per cent stake in the Syria and Colombia-focused oil explorer, which was acquired by Sinochem, a Chinese state-controlled company, for £532 million.

Mr Kroupeev’s stake in Emerald is held through Waterford Finance & Investment, his Guernsey-based holding company.

Michael Kroupeev set to make £138m from Emerald Takeover

Sinochem’s offer of 750p a share for Emerald represents a 34 per cent premium on the group’s share price before July 10, the date the company announced the takeover approach. But Mr Kroupeev bought much of his stake in 2004 for less than one sixth that level — or 120p per share.
Yesterday, Mr Kroupeev indicated that he intended to support the takeover, which Alastair Beardsall, Emerald’s executive chairman, said represented “fair value” for shareholders

Read More>The Times Online

The UK Government is expected to announce a deal today with Liechtenstein, the tiny Alpine principality, to effectively end secrecy for Britons who hold accounts in the tax haven.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has agreed with Liechtenstein to start exchanging information.

Up to 5,000 British investors have an estimated £3 billion stashed away in secret accounts in the country.

Liechtenstein will no longer be a British Tax Haven

Investors are expected to be offered the chance to volunteer details of their deposits in return for limited penalties and low risk of prosecution. The Liechtenstein authorities will be asked to close the accounts of those who do not take up the amnesty.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been keen to join international efforts to end secrecy in offshore tax havens and earlier this year HMRC signed similar deals with Guernsey, British Virgin Islands, the Isle of Man and Bermuda. The Alpine principality is outside Britain’s direct influence.

Read More>The Times Online

Spotify, which allows people to listen to music online for free in exchange for listening to audio adverts, has enjoyed huge success in Europe, where it has more than two million users in the UK and Sweden.

The company now plans to roll-out the service in the United States, and is on the brink of securing a fresh injection of cash from backers, including the Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing.

Spotify expanding into the US Market

 
  The Financial Times reports that the Li Ka-shing Foundation, as well as London-based venture capitalists Wellington Partners, and other unnamed investors, are set to plough around $50m in to the Swedish music-streaming service, which would value Spotify at around $250 million.

Spotify, which has offices in Luxembourg, London and Stockholm, was founded in 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It offers three levels of “membership” to its users – free, ad-supported access to its library of streamed tracks; 24-hour ad-free access for 99p per day; and monthly ad-free subscriptions for £9.99.

Read More>The Telegraph