HEINEKEN ROMANIA SA

BRAU UNION ROMANIA is the undisputed leading beer producer in Romania, with 33.6% market share in 2002. The company was founded in January 1998 as a subsidiary of the BBAG group, based in Austria. BRAU UNION ROMANIA presently operates through six breweries located in Arad, Craiova, Constanta, Miercurea Ciuc, Hateg and Bucharest. Each of the breweries had benefit from important technologic upgrade programs during the last years. The investments were aimed at increasing production capacity and at improving beer quality with a view to meeting the high quality standards of the group. Starting with 1997, when the first brewery was acquired, up to now, over 100 million EUR were invested in Romania. At a corporate level, BRAU UNION ROMANIA has 2,100 employees and its annual sales in 2002 reached to 3.85 million hectoliters of beer. In May 2003, BRAU UNION ROMANIA received the certificate for the Quality Management System, according to ISO 9001: 2000 requirements, following the certification audit performed by Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance. The Quality Management System Certification was granted to the Headquarters in Bucharest and to the breweries in Miercurea-Ciuc, Hateg and Bucharest (Grivita). The process of implementation of the system in the other three breweries held by the company - in Arad, Craiova and Constanta is presently running and it is planned to end the latest in the first quarter of 2004. At the beginning of May 2003, BBAG group announced the conclusion of a strategic partnership with Heineken. The new group established through the integration of Heineken's Central Europe operations with those of the BBAG group, under the name of BRAU UNION, became the leader on the Central European beer market. By this partnership, BRAU UNION is the leader of the beer industry in six countries: Austria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Macedonia and ranks second in other two countries, Bulgaria and Croatia.