Keg Lease Pty Ltd has been acquired by Kegstar, the Bintani subsidiary announced on Tuesday evening.

Confirming the deal, which was announced to customers late today, Bintani director Phil Meddings told Brews News it was a good outcome for both parties.

“It’s a good alignment of competencies and it allows us to focus on our ingredients, which has always been our core business,” he said.

Both Meddings and Kegstar managing director Adam Trippe-Smith declined to put a price on the acquisition, which is likely to remain undisclosed, in spite of Brambles being listed on the ASX.

The exchange will not consider Keg Lease to be a material acquisition for Brambles, which has a market cap of $15 billion.

Until now, Kegstar has been unable to offer customers branded kegs

“Since commencing operations in December 2012, Keg Lease has grown to be a major supplier of keg leasing services in the Australian market with in excess of 21,000 kegs currently leased to over 125 customers,” Bintani said in a statement.

“We now feel the time is right for Kegstar to continue the growth of Keg Lease with its strong access to capital as part of Brambles and the opportunity to provide integrated keg solutions that incorporate both leasing and pooling.”

Nothing changes: Kegstar
In Australia and New Zealand, Kegstar now owns in excess of 120,000 kegs that it rents to more than 200 customers each year.

Having a leasing option alongside Kegstar’s well-established keg pooling solutions will be attractive to broader catchment of brewers, Kegstar CEO Adam Trippe-Smith told Brews News.

“There’s proven to be a demand for keg leasing for either start-up phase breweries, or single state breweries or breweries that want branding on the keg,” he said.

“Up until now we haven’t offered that and we do see a demand for it. If that’s what customers want, we want to be able to offer it to them.”

Bintani Australia will remain involved in both selling and repairing kegs through its growing Keg Services operations.