Furthering its ambitious expansion plans, Russian restaurant and brewery group Tinkoff has announced that together with leading German brewer Krones it is to build a $75 million (€64m) brewery near St. Petersburg.
According to a report in Vedomosti newspaper the brewery will have an annual capacity of approximately 20 million litres and should be operational by September 2004.
The report also said that German and Russian banks will provide loans to Tinkoff in order for the company to finance its part of the project.
During 2003 the expanding Tinkoff company has opened four of its own restaurants and is due to open a fifth by the year end. This brings the total amount of investments in the restaurant chain to $16 million during the course of the last five years. The group says that in 2004 it plans to invest $10 million more.
The company is opening a private brewery in Ufa, Bashkortostan, in the middle of December 2003, which will be the sixth restaurant in Tinkoff chain. The restaurant includes a brewery which is located in the restaurant hall and produces 15,300 litres per month.