Trouble Brewing At Bira 91? Here Is How A Simple Name Change Wrecked The Indian Beer Brand's Foundation

All hell seemed to have broken loose on one of India's 'chillest' beer brands, Bira 91. Cracks in Bira's foundation are now more visible than ever with over 250 employees of B9 Beverages, petitioning for the removal of founder Ankur Jain, citing governance issues, delayed salaries and unpaid vendor bills.

Speaking to ET, Jain said, "It is true that we have employee overdue that have been persisting. These range between three and five months, depending on the level of employees, and include a delay in payments of tax dues as well."

He also said that due to some "restructuring" in the company the headcount had to be reduced by by nearly 50%.

Although he denied knowledge of any such petition addressed to key shareholders, adding that the board also was not aware of the same. He did admit to a large scale disruption in sales and business over the last 18 months.

The tragic tale began with a tiny administrative change in 2023-2024 when Bira decided to tweak its registered name from 'B9 Beverages Pvt. Ltd.' to just B9 Beverages Ltd.

The simple name alteration caused for a lot of disruptions. B9 Beverages had to write off around Rs 80 crore in unsold stocks while registering new product labels, according to ET.

Compliance delays caused a 22% drop in revenue and a 68% rise in losses for the financial year 2023-24, with the company reporting a net loss of Rs 748 crore, exceeding its total revenue of Rs 638 crore.

According to Investor D Muthukrishnan's post on X, "All the states immediately banned the sale of Bira 91 treating the new name as different entity. They demanded fresh legal approvals, label approvals, product registrations and fresh licenses for every single variant."

While speaking to the Financial Express, Jain admitted, "Due to the name change, there was a four–six month cycle where we had to re-register labels and re-apply across states which resulted in literally no sales for several months despite demand".

This, he said, has also led to volume degrowth in fiscal 2025, disruption of the company's business and cash flow for many months and a pileup of overdues including statutory dues, employee dues and vendor dues.