Press speculation links Heineken with acquisition of Polish brewer Brok

Press reports suggest that the group of investors that have taken over brewer Brok have links with Elbrewery and the Zywiec Group. On Saturday, Brok announced that it had been bought by a group of American investors, after Holsten Brauerai sold its subsidiary Hamburg-based AHK - Beteiligungsgesellshaft mbH, which owns Brok. Rzeczpospolita speculates that Heineken, the parent company of Zywiec and hence Elbrewery, could have stepped in to take over Brok, a move it had to make indirectly to avoid problems with the Office for Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK). With sales in the first ten months of the year amounting to 670,000 hectoliters, Brok had a 3% share of the Polish beer market. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B4) M.K.