Winterthur beer in financial difficulties: Appenzeller brewery Locher plans to join Chopfab Boxer

Locher brewery will only inject capital if haircut is successful

The goal is a haircut followed by recapitalization. Bucher says Chopfab Boxer must remain organizationally independent, and the shareholders most recently involved will comply. Even if neither party wants to confirm this, it is very likely that the Locher brewery will acquire a clear majority of the shares.

The Chopfab Boxer was actually in good shape. Founded in 2013 under the name Doppelleu, the brewery is one of the ten largest breweries in Switzerland with a market share of approximately 3 percent. In just a few years it has established itself in the market. Since taking over Boxer in 2017, it has a presence all over Switzerland with its products. “Everything is going well on the customer side,” Bucher emphasizes.

But the brewery is groaning under a high debt load as it is financed mainly by borrowed capital. When interest rates rose, the bill was no longer paid. And this comes after previous years were marked by the closure of various catering establishments due to the pandemic and the subsequent sharp increase in the costs of raw materials and energy.

There were already changes in the board of directors in 2023

The first changes were already visible last year. Long-serving board members left the company in the second half of the year: first Matthias Reinhart and Albrecht Langhart, then in December Peter Keller, who joined the company as Boxer’s onetime managing director.

It is not yet clear whether the renewal will be successful. But both parties are confident: “We are part of the solution, but renovation is a very challenging task,” says Locher managing director Aurèle Meyer. It should be possible to put the Chopfab Boxer brewery on a “sound footing”. And this only works if the company’s debt is reduced and refinanced. “The beer is good, the brands are right,” says Meyer.

Fists and Chobfab Boxers are a great addition. Here is the traditional, large brewery of Appenzell. There is the company Winterthur, which has a popular brand in German-speaking Switzerland and a strong brand in French-speaking Switzerland. Together, Locher and Chopfab Boxer will form a group producing 13 percent of the beer consumed in Switzerland. Or more than 16 percent of domestic production.

This means Locher can catch up with and even surpass Heineken, with its Eichhof and Calanda breweries, today’s number two in the Swiss market. But no one wants to talk about this right now. Priorities are elsewhere.

“We are currently trying to do everything we can to save Chopfab Boxer,” says Meyer, Locher’s boss. “It’s about jobs and beer culture.” The two breweries complement each other well; there is almost no overlap. Meyer says the stated goal is for operations to continue as before and for no locations to be closed.

The latter is also important for Bucher. It assumes the restructuring will be successful without staff cuts. Closing location is not an option.

Now it’s time to involve business partners in the haircut. Successfully reached agreement with shareholders and banks. Bucher says he has no alternative plans to the planned renovation. “This is our common path that we want to follow successfully.”