Genesee Brewing parent to be sold

Thomas Adams//November 2, 2012//

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North American Breweries Holdings LLC, parent of Rochester’s Genesee Brewing Co., agreed to be sold to Cerveceria Costa Rica S.A. for $388 million, officials announced last week.

NAB owner KPS Capital Partners L.P. has signed a definitive agreement to sell the beverage company by the end of the year. NAB is the U.S. importer of Cerveceria’s Imperial beer.

"We are all staying with the company," CEO Richard Lozyniak said after the announcement. "They want us all to stay. Looking at it from a Rochester community perspective, I could not have asked for a better outcome."

Employment at the Genesee brewery has more than doubled since KPS acquired the former High Falls Brewing Co. in February 2009, rising to more than 700 from 330 three years ago. Beverage production also has doubled, the company has said.

KPS has spent $30 million to upgrade the Rochester brewery, including $10 million this year, Lozyniak told the Rochester Business Journal in July.

KPS also bought Labatt Brewing Co. Ltd.’s Buffalo-based U.S. operations and the perpetual license from Pernod Ricard USA LLC to make Seagram Co. Ltd.’s wine coolers and malt beverages.

In addition to its Genesee beers, the Rochester facility makes the Original Honey Brown Lager and Dundee Ales and Lagers craft beers.

The company’s Seagram’s Escapes wine coolers have become the fastest-growing segment of the business, executives have said.

NAB acquired Independent Brewers United Inc. of South Burlington, Vt., in August 2010. IBU is the holding company for craft beer makers Magic Hat Brewing Co. in Vermont, Pyramid Brewing Co. in Seattle and MacTarnahan’s Brewing Co. in Portland, Ore.

"In forming NAB, KPS did not buy or invest in a company," said Raquel Palmer, a partner with KPS, a New York City-based private-equity firm, in a statement. "Rather, we created a new company that became one of the largest and fastest-growing independent beer companies in the U.S."