Perla brewery could hold the balance in the race to be best-selling brewer

A foreign investment fund may purchase a stake in Lublin-based brewer Perla which has a 3% share of the beer market. Perla's president, Jozef Hubert Gierowski, who holds a 51% stake in the brewer is currently in talks with the fund. At the same time he denies speculation that Zywiec intends to purchase Perla. Kompania Piwowarska has also for some time been interested in Perla and intended to purchase a 100% stake in order to become a leader on the market and exceed the Zywiec Group which has a 32% market share. According to unofficial information in Parkiet, Zywiec offered around zl. 170 million for the stake. The transaction was not concluded as Perla's Gierowski and Brok-Strzelec shareholders failed to come to terms on the issue. (Parkiet, p. 3) A.Z.