Anchor Steam Brewery sold

[thatguy]

I just heard on the radio this morning. Sad...

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

This totally blew up my phone while I was away. So many text & dm messages. So sad to hear…

[Greg]

[Drunk Monk]

Anchor Brewing would consider sale to union employees, company confirms
by: Tori Gaines
Posted: Jul 22, 2023 / 03:19 PM PDT
Updated: Jul 23, 2023 / 03:54 PM PDT

(KRON) — Anchor Brewing Company would “gladly consider” a “bona-fide” offer to from its union members to purchase the brewery and save it from closure, a spokesperson for the company confirmed to KRON4. 
The Anchor’s Union spokesperson emailed the company and stated that union members met and discussed plans before deciding the launch the effort to buy out the San Francisco staple. The union also clarified that an “unidentified” group of Anchor employees are considering the purchase, but the union itself is not. 
Leadership at Anchor Brewing shared a positive note about the potential sale: 
“Given our deep respect for the Anchor Union and our team members, should our employees put forward a bona-fide, legally binding offer to buy the Company, one that includes a verifiable source of funds, we would gladly consider it,” the Anchor Brewing Company wrote in a statement.
Time is of the essence, the brewing company said. At this time, Anchor Brewing is still moving forward with an Assignment for the Benefit of creditors in August, but it is also fielding inquiries to purchase the business at the same time. 
Last week, Anchor Brewing announced that more than 20 investors had reached out with inquiries to buy the company. 

[thatguy]

https://sfist.com/2023/09/05/anchor-brew...-two-days/

Anchor Brewing Employees Launch GoFundMe to Buy Brewery, Campaign Makes Half of Its Goal in Two Days

5 September 2023

Community money is pouring in to the Anchor Brewing Company employees’ bid to buy the brewery after its August closure, as a GoFundMe campaign has hit more than half its goal in just two days.
It was bitter news when we learned in July that Anchor Brewing Company declared bankruptcy and announced its impending closure. That was the decision of Japanese brewing conglomerate Sapporo, who acquired Anchor Brewing in 2017.
But Anchor Brewing Company has risen from the dead before, most notably when Fritz Maytag bought the company on its deathbed in 1965 and fully revived the brand. And a few local suitors and investors announced possibly credible plans to buy the brewery, but none seemed as determined as the unionized Anchor Brewing Union employees, who announced aspirational  plans to buy the brewery and make it a co-op in late July.
Image: anchorunionsf via Instagram
And those employees are the first ones making a major move to line up the funding. The Anchor Union launched their GoFundMe fundraising campaign on Monday, with a goal of $50,000 in donations. As of 2 p.m. Tuesday, just one day after its launch, the total raised had already reached more than $25,000, and keeps growing. (As seen below, the campaign had already hit $15,000 before the first day was even finished.) 
Image: anchorunionsf via Instagram
“Workers have formed a co-op with the intention of purchasing and running the business collectively and carrying on the Anchor's legacy,” the workers say on their GoFundMe announcement. “We are working with organizations who specialize in worker ownership and are guiding us through this process. We need the community's help to cover our costs as we explore the possibilities of worker ownership.”
@anchorunionSF via Twitter
Still, how realistic is this employee bid to buy the brewery? Anchor employees had already said publicly they felt Sapporo was intentionally slow-walking on their offer, and the employees taking over may not be something Sapporo Brewing is keen to see. And honestly, a $50,000 goal seems pretty unambitious given the scope of the purchase. (The brewery and the property under it alone are likely worth millions!) 
Consider that the crowdfunding campaign to resurrect The Stud is asking a far heftier $500,000, and Anchor Brewing is a much more sprawling business enterprise with global fandom. But since the Anchor employees’ crowdfunding campaign is likely to surpass its goal by mid- to late-week, it’s a fair bet the Anchor campaign will exceed that $50,000 goal exponentially.
And as we've explained before, since Anchor Brewing is in bankruptcy, Sapporo Brewing does not get to decide who buys which assets. That decision goes to the third-party California Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, who will likely make their asset sale decisions based on cold-blooded financial calculations rather than who is the sentimental favorite.
Image: anchorunionsf via Instagram
But the Anchor employees do have legal counsel and employee ownership experts, so you figure they're getting pretty solid counsel. And for what it’s worth, NBC Bay Area reports that San Jose’s Fox Tale Fermentation Project just released a Solidarity Ale whose proceeds will go to support the Anchor employees’ bid. There's a similar Solidarity Ale proceed campaign at SF’s Enterprise Brewing on Howard Street, and other brewpubs may join that effort too. Though it’s unclear whether any proceeds raised in a limited edition beer release would even be a drop in the barrel given the money it would take to buy Anchor Brewing Company.

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

The home of S.F.’s iconic Anchor Brewing Co. is on the market. Here’s the price
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[url=https://www.sfchronicle.com/author/laura-waxmann/]Laura Waxmann
Oct. 12, 2023Updated: Oct. 13, 2023 11:35 a.m.



The home of Anchor Brewery Co. has been listed for sale, months after the 127-year-old operation was closed.
Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle 2019
The property that for 44 years has housed San Francisco’s historic Anchor Brewing Co.’s “steam beer” plant in Potrero Hill officially hit the market on Thursday. 
Japanese brewing giant Sapporo Holdings Ltd., Anchor’s current owner, is seeking $40 million for the 2.17-acre property, which includes two buildings at 495 and 501 De Haro streets, totaling 108,728 square feet, sources familiar with the listing have confirmed.
The Anchor brand is also available for sale but is not included in that price tag.
Sapporo paid roughly $85 million for the San Francisco brewery in 2017. The company did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Thursday.
Real estate services firm CBRE has the listing for the property, which is being marketed for sale by Kyle Kovac, Mike Taquino, Joe Moriarty, Giancarlo Sangiacomo and Kati Thabit.

Brewer Eric Svendberg operates brewing equipment at Anchor Brewing Co. in 2019. The business was closed in July, and now the property is for sale.
Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle 2019
The listing comes three months after Sapporo’s board of directors voted to cease the 127-year-old brewery’s operations and liquidate the business as part of an assignment for the benefit of creditors, or ABC — a voluntary alternative to formal bankruptcy proceedings. At the time, the company cited a “combination of challenging economic factors and declining sales since 2016” as reasons for the closure. The brewery’s 61 employees received 60-day notices.
In June, Anchor halted its national beer distribution in an effort to reduce costs as the company’s management made final attempts to evaluate all possible outcomes, stating that its expenses increasingly eclipsed its revenues. The liquidation process began at the start of August. 
At the tail end of 2019, the Anchor workers ratified their first union contract, and their second contract was approved in June. Since the news of the brewery’s closure, the Anchor workers have been in the process of forming a co-op in order to make a bid to purchase the company and its assets.
Patrick Machel, of Anchor Brewing Co., said that the workers have voted in a board of directors for the co-op, and that he serves as its chair. In September, the workers launched a GoFundMe fundraising campaign that sought to raise $50,000; to date, they've raised $107,000. 
Machel said that the workers are "still very serious" about purchasing the brewery and have been engaging investors. He said that Sapporo has not shared the financial information surrounding the property and business with the workers and described the property's listing as a "step in a certain  direction."
"We can't really make a bid until we know the financial data," said Machel. "We're still in the dark about a lot of things."
Sam Singer, who is Anchor’s spokesperson, said that the creditors hired CBRE to market the brewery’s property and “because there are disparate buckets of value” — the creditors wanted to maximize the cumulative value of Anchor’s assets.
The creditors have also hired an investment bank to sell Anchor’s business entities but declined to name the bank.
“The union will have to, like other potential buyers, make a presentation to the investment bank, and the investment bank will weigh all of them equally depending on a maximization of value to the creditors,” Singer said.
Sources told the Chronicle that a range of investors have expressed interest in Anchor’s buildings — some that would want to maintain the site as a brewery and others that would not.

Taproom guide Philip Todd fills glasses with beer for a tour group at Anchor Public Taps in 2019. Anchor Brewing Co. was the nation’s first craft brewery.
Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle 2019
CBRE did not comment on the listing, but confirmed that the site could be “repositioned” under its current PDR — production, distribution, repair — zoning, which allows for a range of activities in industrially zoned areas such as research and development, storage, electric vehicle charging and shipping logistics. The firm noted that the City Planning Department recently expanded the permitted uses within PDR zoning districts to include laboratories. 
The Anchor plant is located in an industrial stretch of the city that has been described by real estate stakeholders as “Area AI,” due to a number of artificial intelligence startups taking up industrial spaces in the Mission, Potrero Hill and other adjacent neighborhoods.