Carlsberg Looking At Major Growth Initiatives

Denmark's Carlsberg A/S (CARL-A.KO), the world's fourth-largest brewer, is looking at major growth initiatives, possibly in the shape of joint venture acquisitions, its chairman told Danish business daily Borsen in an interview published Friday.

"We have entered a period where our structure is in place after the major growth leaps we've taken. Now, we'd very much like Carlsberg to find a model for new growth initiatives to bring us a good step further," Carlsberg Supervisory Board Chairman Povl Krogsgaard-Larsen is quoted as saying.

"We are at a place where something big is about to happen again in Carlsberg, that's the sense I have. It's difficult to see us take a quantum leap as big as the ones we've taken before, but we have the capacity to take a smaller quantum leap," Krogsgaard-Larsen said.

Carlsberg has grown rapidly, but still less than the top-three players, InBev, SAB Miller and Heineken, which have led an aggressive consolidation in the industry.

"We are up against giants, and that's a new situation," Krogsgaard-Larsen said, adding that Carlsberg must seek alternatives to straight acquisitions to handle the fierce competition. Carlsberg could seek partnerships for joint venture acquisitions, he said.

"It's conceivable. There are many thoughts at Carlsberg right now," he said.

Newspaper website: http://www.borsen.dk

-By Flemming Emil Hansen, Dow Jones Newswires; +45 33 12 44 88; flemming.hansen@dowjones.com

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