(Reuters) -United Breweries said on Wednesday that it has suspended supplying beer to a state-run corporation in the southern Indian state of Telangana, which will halt sales of popular beer brands such as Heineken and Kingfisher in one of the country’s top liquor-selling states.
The suspension comes less than a month after Reuters reported that Indian antitrust body raided offices of alcohol giants Pernod Ricard, and Anheuser-Busch InBev to investigate accusations of price collusion with retailers in the Telangana state.
United Breweries said the decision to halt was mainly due to significant and ongoing operating losses in the state.
“Despite our continuous efforts over the past two years, there has been no increase in the base prices offered for our products. This has resulted in escalating losses, making our operations in the State unviable,” United Breweries said in a statement.
Shares of United Breweries fell 7% after the news and were on track for its worst day in nearly four years.
(Reporting by Indranil Sarkar, Nandan Mandayam and Manvi Pant in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
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