Expensive City!

Just got back from dinner and drinks in Copenhagen. We went to the Madklubben, which means Food Club in Danish. We had spectacular food--salmon with watercress salad for appetizer, steak and beets for the main course, 4 different types of cheeses (including danish brie) and a pudding topped with pear sauce for dessert. Luckily the dinner was included in the trip price, so we didn't have to pay for that (well, better put we already paid for that...). However, I definitely know that drinks are expensive. Two bottles of the cheaper wine for the table... $90. One beer... $10. And for the cab ride home, the meter starts at $12 (you can imagine how quickly that bill grows). Definitely feeling the weak American dollar :(

Denmark Day 1

Today was our first official day of the Scandinavian study trip, in Copenhagen. Because it is Easter Monday, we had no meetings and instead spent the day sight seeing. First on our tour was the Kronborg Castle, one of the most famous castle's in Europe.



The castle is also known as Elsinore, the setting for William Shakespeare's Hamlet. In the picture below is a portrait of Amleth, whose story was told by Saxo Grammaticus in the 13th century and later retold by Shakespeare.



The castle also has a statue of Olgier the Dane, the great Danish King that sleeps here until needed for protection of the country's people. However, we have discovered that the Danish are quite fatalistic given their history of losing many wars to the Swedish (there appears to be a fun rivalry between them, as has been demonstrated from our Danish and Swedish classmates).



For the afternoon we took a canal tour of downtown Copenhagen, where we saw the house of Hans Christian Anderson (who wrote The Ugly Duckling and The Little Mermaid), the new opera house (which was donated by Maersk), and a battle ship that was recently retired because it accidently shot a missle at a summer house--luckily no one was home at the time!

Now we are off to dinner to meet a Danish Sloan alum, and then a little relaxation before our first business meetings tomorrow morning.

Iceland

Finally made it into Iceland after a one day delay. Spent the afternoon at the Blue Lagoon, one of the famous geothermal spas just outside of Reykjavik. The water is a really cool blue, and about 104 degrees F (see picture below).

Afterwards we grabbed some dinner by our hotel and started planning our evening festivities. We discovered that Icelanders don't actually start partying until after midnight, so we did some pre-partying at our hotel and went to a bar called the Apothecary around 1am. Icelanders definitely like to party late, as we didn't get home until around 6am! Overall it was a fun night of drinking and dancing with the locals. Now we're off to Copenhagen tomorrow morning for the start of our study trip.

Beginning to Iceland trip...

Not so good. Flight to JFK was delayed, so I missed my flight to Reykjavik. Had to buy a new ticket for tomorrow... not cheap. Here's hoping tomorrow works out!

For more info on my trip, check out this blog frequently--I'll try to keep everyone updated as much as possible.

Carlsberg

I gave a presentation on Carlsberg today in preparation for the Scandinavia study trip. They are quite an innovative brewery and I am very excited to meet with one of their Senior VPs, Alex Meyers. See below a quick overview of the presentation.

Carlsberg History

• Founded in 1847 by J.C. Jacobsen (after the name of his son Carl)
• Public company with over 30,000 employees and $10 billion (US$) market cap
  
• Merged with Orkla ASA in 2001, becoming the 5th largest brewery in the world

Carlsberg Brands

• Carlsberg Pilsner (4.6% ABV)
• Carlsberg Light (2.7% ABV)
• Carls Porter (7.8% ABV)
• Carls Hvede (5.8% ABV; interesting because until recently wheat beer was illegal in Denmark!)
• Tuborg (4.6% ABV)
• Tuborg Easter Brew (5.7% ABV; seasonal beer that will be released while we are in Scandinavia)

Financial Outlook

• Steady growth in volume over last 5 years
• Strong growth in EBIT (30%) because of "innovation and strong presence of international brands Carlsberg and Tuborg" -- CEO Jorgen Rasmussen

EBIT and Stock Price Growth over last 5 years

International Growth

• Clear market leader in Russia (38% market share)
• 25% increase in volume in Asia

Merger with Scottish & Newcastle

• Carlsberg and Heineken launched a joint bid to break up UK's Scottish & Newcastle in 2007
• $15.3 billion US (50% premium over share price)
• Carlsberg would gain sole possession of Baltic Beverages and S&N's French, Greek and Chinese Operations
• However, the European Commission announced this Monday (3/1/08) that it is postponing its review of the merger until April of this year

World's Most Expensive Beer

• Introduced Jacobsen Vintage #1 on Jan 25, 2008
  
• Costs 2,008 DKK (~$400 US)
• 600 bottles of the 10.5% ABV beer will be released in 2008
• Plans to release 2,009 and 2,010 version as well
  

"Probably the best beer in the world"

• Carlsberg Advertising slogan
• See the embedded online video about Carlsberg below:

Ignoring my blog

So I have been seriously ignoring my blog for the past few months, so I figure I better start with a recap of my life today :)

1. I have a job after b-school (always a good thing) at McKinsey in LA. I am also not starting till late October, so if you have any great ideas for what I should do over the summer let me know!
2. Just finished a very successful Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford, including the E-Conference which i helped out with as the Student Program Director. I met some great people there and hope to keep in touch as I consider pursuing a startup in the future.
3. I am going to Scandinavia for a study trip in 2 weeks. I am sure I will be doing a lot more posting while I am out there to keep everyone updated.
4. My pro bono consulting project with the San Francisco Playhouse is almost complete--we have our final presentation with the Board of Directors a week from Monday

Those are the big things so far... I also had a great time today at the Special Olympics basketball clinic here at Stanford. Everyone had a great time and I hope to see them again this spring in other Special Olympics events.

Till next time...

Cool Huip