The board of directors of United Breweries will meet next week to consider a proposal for rights issue.The company today informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that its board is scheduled to meet on September 28 to consider the proposal to issue further equity shares to existing shareholders on rights basis. Company executives said that post the board's decision on whether to go in for the rights issue or not, details like the amount to be raised would be disclosed.Last month, company executives had told Business Standard that they would invest close to Rs 1,200 crore in capacity expansion of its breweries to manufacture beer. The rights issue is expected to finance that expansion though there was no confirmation from the company on the same.The expansion of brewery capacity will consist of setting up greenfield projects in Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The expansion would be completed in three years, company executives said. Post expansion, the group's beer manufacturing capacity will increase to about 170 million cases from the current 100 million.
