SABMiller vs. Anheuser-Busch: The Takeover Battle for Harbin Brewery

HARBIN BREWERY GROUP

The history of Harbin dates back to 1900, when Ulubulevskij, a Russian national, founded a brewery in Northeast China (called Manchuria then), which he named after himself - 'Ulubulevskij Brewery.' The initial objective of the Brewery, considered the first in China, was to supply beer to Russians working on the Trans-Manchurian Railway Project⁵ started in 1898. In 1908, the company was renamed Gulunia Brewery and its annual production was increased to 1,200 tons from 300 tons in 1900. In 1932, the brewery got one more new name - 'Harbin Brewery Factory', when it went into joint control of Chinese and Czech nationals.

Later, with the Soviet Red army capturing Manchuria in 1946, the company was controlled by Soviet nationals, who called it Quilin Stock Company Limited. This situation prevailed until 1950. In 1950, when Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, ordered the return of Chinese assets, the ownership of the company was returned to the Chinese government. The Chinese renamed it Harbin Brewery and operated it as a state-owned entity. Driven by the famine that struck various parts of China during the 1950s, the company became the first to brew beer with corn instead of rice, in China in 1959. Through the 1960s, the company focused on investing resources to improve its brewing technology, as part of which, in 1973, it installed its first sterilization machine in Heilongjiang Province...