N.Z. Brew, to spend $61M

Press, 29 July 1976, Page 18

N.Z. Brew, to spend $61M

PA Dunedin [ Capital works costing] S6IM are being budgeted fori over the next five years by] New Zealand Breweries, Ltd, the chairman (Sir Clifford Plimmer) said at the annual general meeting of the company in Dunedin. The programme includes SI7M for the up-grading and modernisation of more than 100 leased hotels, extension of “take away” facilities, and the maintenance and development of refrigeration systems in some of the company’s outlets. The company plans to spend $14.5M on the maintenance and development of brewery' plants, including

i[s6.3M on the Auckland; brewhouse. ;j The SI7M appropriated to ■the company’s hotels divi-[ [sion will include provision '[to develop the company's ■ new restaurant — Cobb and I Co’s, and Wellington’s 1860 I Victualling Company tavern. “Recent pricing decisions, and the clarification by the Commerce Commission of some of the problems in the I liquor industry lead us to 1 hope for a more realistic approach to the vexed question of brewery profits,” Sir Clif- • ' ford Plimmer said. 1 “This year, it is expected that the company will re- ■ ceive more than S3M in • export receipts from trading i with 14 different countries, and a major effort is now I planned in the most com- i

■lpetitive of all markets, North America.” ; The company was trading [at a satisfactory level for the first quarter of this year, a marked improvement Ibn the trend of the first quarter of last year when the company was down 28 per cent on 1974. The company is still trying to dispose of the assets of the South Seas Brewery Company, Fiji. The Western Samoan Government, which is planning to establish a brewery in the territory, was not interested. The liquidator now has only one option left to him — the sale of the remaining assets by auction. The estimated loss to N.Z.B. had been written off in the accounts.