Entrepreneur beer baron toasts success after near collapse

FOUR months after his business almost collapsed, Indian beer baron Lord Karan Bilimoria told Yorkshire business leaders that when building a brand the key is to “adapt or die”.

Speaking at the Corporate Wisdom lecture at Leeds University Business School, sponsored by DLA Piper, Kleinwort Benson and Marketing Leeds, the founder and chairman of Cobra Beer, said that the reason his business survived a failed CVA proposal in May and entered a joint venture with brewing giant Molson Coors was because it was adaptable.

The Indian born peer founded Cobra beer 20 years ago in the UK with little money and a qualification in accountancy but has built it up to £178m turnover supplying almost 6,000 Indian restaurants, another 6,000 retail outlets including major supermarkets and exporting it to 45 countries across the world.

But earlier this year, unable to find new investment, the group wanted to enter a joint venture with Molson Coors via a CVA agreement but that collapsed and Cobra was forced into a pre-pack administration deal before it successfully joined with Molson Coors.

“In that period I nearly lost everything,” Lord Bilimoria told an audience of senior business figures and students at the Yorkshire Bank Lecture Theatre at Leeds University Business School.

“The Dalai Lama said when you are confronted with a problem, take a wider view.”

He said that the adaptability of his business had ensured its survival and success, including, in the past, moving brewing Cobra from Poland to a hi-tech plant in Cheshire which reduced costs.

Having started having his beer brewed and imported from Bangalore, under the deal with Molson Coors, it will now be brewed in Burton-on-Trent.

He called on more Yorkshire businesses to start to trade with India, to take advantage of its huge potential as a growing market – only 20% of its population have mobile phones.

Lord Bilimoria said that the motto of his business was: “To aspire and achieve against the odds with integrity.”

He said the reason that Cobra could sit comfortably alongside a giant like Molson Coors was because it was the largest family-owned brewer in the world with a similar culture.

“My father was a general in the Indian army and when I told him I was going to become an entrepreneur brewing beer he said: ‘All this education and you’re becoming an import-export wallah. You should do a proper job and become a banker’.

“It’s been a journey over 20 years culminating with the last 18 months having been the most challenging we have had – it’s been a pretty tough time.”

However Lord Bilimoria said that he had never lost sight of his goal to brew the “finest ever Indian beer and to make it a global beer brand”.