Sabmiller的Alan Clark对啤酒有很大的计划

他们说，每个伟大的调酒师都是心理学家。通过类比，这应该使艾伦克拉克只是跑的人Sabmiller., the world’s second-largest brewer.

一名临床心理学家通过培训，克拉克在1990年在南非啤酒啤酒员问他的末端询问他时，克拉克正在进行企业咨询，找到帮助黑人员工闯入管理的方法。他遇到了Graham Mackay，那么该集团的Visionary董事总经理，并被提供为培训和发展负责人。克拉克说是的，两名男子从未回头过。

Mackay saw foreign expansion as a lifeline for SAB and, starting as MD and later as CEO from 1999, went on an acquisition binge that included the $5.6 billion takeover of Miller Brewing Co., the No. 2 U.S. beer maker, in 2002, and the $10.2 billion purchase of Australia’s Foster’s Group in 2011. Today, SABMiller is the world’s second-largest brewer, behind Anheuser-Busch InBev, with nearly 10 percent of the market and brands that include Miller and Coors Light in the U.S., South Africa’s Castle Lager, Grolsch and Pilsner Urquell in Europe and Foster’s in Asia. It also owns 49 percent of China Resources Snow Breweries, whose Snow brand is the world’s biggest-selling beer.

While the company was growing like gangbusters, Clark climbed the ladder, running Alrode Brewery in South Africa in the ’90s, heading up SABMiller’s European operations in 2003 and becoming COO in 2012. When Mackay was diagnosed with a brain tumor in April 2013, Clark succeeded him as CEO. Mackay died in December.

The go-go days of the Mackay era are over, leaving Clark with the challenge of sustaining growth. SABMiller is a behemoth, not an upstart; beer consumption has flattened in developed countries, and small craft brewers are grabbing market share. The group’s sales slipped 1 percent in the financial year ended March 31, to $34.1 billion, reflecting declines in新兴市场currencies, while net income grew 4 percent to $3.4 billion.

Clark, 56, set the industry abuzz in September by approaching Heineken about a possible takeover, an approach the Dutch company rejected. That move reignited speculation that Carlos Brito, CEO of AB InBev, could seek to take out SABMiller. Such talk is a major reason why SABMiller’s shares have risen 9.4 percent this year, and stand at a multiple of 20 times expected 2015 earnings.

Trevor Stirling, a brewing analyst at Bernstein Research in London, says that rich valuation is probably Clark’s best defense. He estimates it would take AB InBev eight years to recoup its cost of capital on a deal. Still, takeover talk is unlikely to go away. “This is an industry where everybody’s spoken to everybody at some stage,” says Stirling.

与此同时，克拉克还有其他增长杠杆拉动。该公司从销售额增加了三分之二的销售额新兴市场, where demographics and rising incomes are pushing up beer consumption. It’s going further upmarket in developed countries by promoting premium brews like Blue Moon and Redd’s Apple Ale in the U.S. And Clark aims to cut annual costs by $500 million by streamlining his supply chain and back-office functions.

The South African executive discussed the outlook for SABMiller recently with International Editor Tom Buerkle in New York.

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Institutional Investor: Why is M&A speculation at such a fever pitch now in the beer industry?

Clark:直到可能两个，三年前，活动更多，一些更大的交易正在做。在最近的过去，实际上，它一直慢。而且我坦率地思考，我们将看到要做的较少较少。考虑到所有权结构，它们可能更复杂。因此，将有持续的整合，SabMiller将发挥作用，但它不太可能像它一样活跃。

这是整个整合浪潮，鉴于行业多么集中了？

是的，我这么认为。我们已经有五年左右或那种大规模整合正在进行中。现在有四名主要球员。他们都有非常不同的策略。从我们的角度来看，焦点一直在新兴市场和新兴市场扩张。我们已经完成了成熟的市场交易，但实际上，在美国唯一的两年前唯一真正的大型大型米勒在澳大利亚的几年前也是Carlton＆United and Fost的几年前。我们的重点是新兴市场。对我们来说，这将继续是一个优先事项。我们可以实现的，当我们能够实现的依赖范围内取决于制造商，包括在那里有卖家卖出的人，并且竞争程度的价格达到了价格。

您通过接近Heineken引发了最新的猜测。为什么Heineken？

I prefer not to comment on the specifics of that deal. More generally, there’s this overarching perspective that we would want to look at新兴市场。我们对大型市场，高增长岗位以及我们可以在这些市场中获得领导职位的感兴趣。拉丁美洲随着时间的推移对我们来说非常有趣。非洲对我们来说非常有趣;亚洲，我们不是，相对而是一个大玩家。

所以，它的地理位置，然后是位置的安全。这是他们拥有的品牌投资组合，因为并购的主要市场仍处于国家市场和国家品牌。

Graham Mackay talked about beer being a local business, but you don’t have a global brand. Is that a handicap?

I don’t believe it’s a handicap. It’s a reality, and we knew that when we started out. The first phases of this expansion of SAB, emerging from southern Africa in the early ’90s, was a people-led strategy. It was a view around the beer industry and how to run beer assets better, a belief that we could move into developing and新兴市场并发展啤酒文化的基础。亚慱体育app怎么下载

我认为我们的优势在于我们已经建立了非常强大的本地投资组合，并跨越价格点。我们越来越多地补充与地区品牌，所以非洲城堡的品牌正在遍布非洲;欧洲的Kozel现在是十多个国家;Miller Lite在拉丁美洲做得很好。

你如何进入工艺啤酒空间？

我们发现很难让我们关注它。这是主要酿酒师忽略了很长一段时间的空间。话虽如此，我们有一些较大的工艺品牌。蓝月亮是州最大的工艺品牌之一。Leinenkugel夏天盛大已经迅速增长。

消费者正在碎片化，他们正在扩大他们的曲目，他们正在寻找更有趣的啤酒，更复杂的啤酒。它正在远离核心啤酒，作为我们的全部和最终所有业务。我们正在进入这种更沉迷的空间。

您已经讨论了将您的优质市场份额提高到20％。你是怎么做到的？

我们有现有的品牌,像蓝色的月亮和Leinenkugel. Redd’s Apple Ale, which has done fantastically well. We’ll continue to drive those brands. But of course, it’s new brands that we need to introduce. A brand like Peroni is something we’re focusing on quite carefully in the U.S. and seeing if we can replicate the success we had in the U.K. Then there would also be an assessment of acquisition opportunities on a brand basis, targeting brands that we think are of high value in selected spaces. So it’s not one strategy.

你被认为是Anheuser-Busch Inbev的目标。那会麻烦你吗？

这是我们所知道的，因为那里有所有的喋喋不休。然而，从企业的角度来看，我们专注于理解我们可以改变的东西，我们可以开车，我们的战略应该是什么。我们相信我们有增长策略吗？我们可以针对这种策略吗？因此，我们更专注于我们的业务，我们的客户，我们的消费者。如果你愿意，这是噪音。它已经存在了五年，所以坦率地说，这只是你习惯的东西。这就像天气一样。

许多新兴市场增长放缓。你去年袭击了外汇。这是一个新兴市场的环境吗？

Emerging markets are always interesting. They’re always changing. The reality is that we have over 70 percent of our business exposed to emerging markets, so 70 percent of our revenue and our volume. That’s a great position to be in because we are exposed to growth. Look at Africa, for example, where the per capita consumption is sitting at the nine or ten [liters a year] level. That’s got decades of growth. Africa’s getting toward about 20 percent contribution to our profit. If you look at that part of your portfolio and say, well, I’ve got more than a decade of growth ahead of me, that’s fantastic.

如果你翻到拉丁美洲，非常相同的人口动态和非常相同的经济动态。人均消费较高。它们在30到40岁之间。但再次，没有理由相信他们不能随时间达到60,70,80级。所以，再次，长期的增长轨迹。在亚洲，我们在中国很大，中国有很长的路要走。来自中国的大量增长。随着时间的推移在中国的利润率大量增长。

你能把雪变成区域或全球品牌吗？

这是可能的。雪不知道中国。管理团队的重点是正确的，是建立雪并达到比例的位置。雪有大约23％的市场份额。我们希望看到自己从那一点上移动;这是该业务的主要关注点。我们现在开始认为雪变得如此广为人知，特别是随着你在中国以外的更多中国旅行，这是一个开始建立一个全球中国品牌的机会吗？没有坚定的决定。建立一个国际品牌需要很长时间。

Sabmiller用Graham Mckay鉴定。他亲自聘请了你。从他那里夺回缰绳是多么挑战？

在某些方面，它不可能回答这个问题。说过，我确实进来了一年的首席运营官，然后是18个月前我被任命为首席执行官角色，所以我有时间体验它是什么样的。坦率地说，我所看到的经验完全是我对萨布姆的一生所在的同样的经历：让你确保你对你想要参加的地方的共同理解，很多挑战，很多问题你正在制作的决定，然后他走开了，让你继续下去。

“嗯，”嗯，我想做的事物没有意义，是因为它发生了如此糟糕的事情。“这是一个说法，我如何向前移动这一业务。这种类别策略的概念是非常新的和不同的东西。我们更加重视利用我们的规模，采购扩大，进入供应链，我们正在考虑这一点。对组织的音调和活动非常不同。我相信，即使格雷厄姆已经在这里，那就是继续持续的。当然，他看不到业务的持续增长是悲惨的。

There’s a lot of concern about inequality, has capitalism gone off the rails. Are there wider obligations the company needs to fulfill?

我们渴望成为砂岩顶部tile of our peer group on total shareholder return over a rolling three-year basis. That’s the ultimate measure. But, of course, we recognize that to achieve that, it’s not only about the beer we make and sell and the number of consumers that we can get and how much price we can take. There’s a wide range of stakeholders and employees.

在我认为我们是独一无二的地方，我们往往非常接近我们运作的社区。在新兴市场，我们经常是主要的纳税人。在非洲，我们雇用了大约20,000人的某个地方。可持续发展等问题对我们的业务战略不可或缺。在非洲，我们已经开发了Casaba BEERS，高粱啤酒，建立了与生命的本地供应链。

我对领导团队的观点往往是我们是一家全球公司，而是当我们在哥伦比亚经营时，我们就是哥伦比亚。如果您与捷克共和国的员工交谈，他们将与您的当地业务有关Plzensky Prazdroj的讨论。我认为这是我们能够在世界各地寻找世界的理由之一。我们正在接受文化，我们正在接受多样性。亚慱体育app怎么下载

So, sell to me, not to Carlos Brito?

就是这样。

In five years’ time, what will be the most significant difference people will see in SABMiller’s marketing?

Transformation in the way that we express beer to modern consumers in developed markets. What does it mean? Beer, through the actions of major brewers, has targeted itself at males almost exclusively for a very, very long period of time. Not only has it ignored women, it has often been insulting to women. And I think that’s robbed us of a major opportunity.

That does not mean you will not have beer brands for men. But we need to change beer so that it is not excluding women and not disparaging women. The ability to access a much wider range of occasions — to be more natural, less laddish — is just a very important shift in our business. • •

Follow Tom Buerkle on Twitter at@tombuerkle。