Alert: Foster’s Intends to Demerge Beer & Wine

Dear Client: That is if everything goes according to plan, and not before 2011 at the earliest. The industry has been waiting for this announcement since 2008 when former ceo Trevor O'Hoy stepped down. You'll recall that the company admitted it had paid too much for Beringer and Southcorp, and announced a A$700 million write-down of its intangible wine assets and transferred A$600 million in goodwill to its beer operations. Analysts have speculated that a separation of the beer and