| The company, owned by the city-based Jain family, has been on the block for some time now. Both United Breweries and Shaw Wallace are known to have looked at the company for acquisition in the past. |
| Though the cost of the acquisition could not be ascertained, a Rockman Group source said that it has acquired a 100 per cent stake in Rajasthan Breweries Ltd along with all the assets and liabilities of the company. |
| The brewery, located on the Delhi-Jaipur highway, has been lying shut for a while. "It has a capacity to produce 5 million cases a year. Considering that the Indian beer market is around 72 million cases, this is a significant capacity acquisition for us," the source said. |
| This is the Rockman Group's first foray into the beer business. The closely-held business house has interests in advertising, construction, lubricants, the media, mining, coal and scrap. The group is controlled by CS Agarwal. |
| However, the Rockman Group is planning to introduce the concept of beer gardens in the country in a joint venture with a German brewery. |
| "We are planning to set up beer gardens in South Africa and Singapore as well and this acquisition will give us a lot of synergy," said the source. |
| The beer gardens will be a chain of speciality restaurants serving freshly brewed beer. The first such outlet will come up in the country by the end of 2004. The company will initially invest Rs 50 crore in the project. |
| Rajasthan Breweries Ltd started out by bottling Stroh's beer. But it ran into financial problems and the brewery had to be shut. |
| The Rockman Group's acquisition of the company, which caught industry watchers by surprise, comes at a time when the beer industry is undergoing a consolidation with two large players dominating the market: UB and the Shaw Wallace-SABMiller combine. |
| A large number of regional breweries and their brands have been acquired by these two companies in the last few years. |
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