Being the India head of Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) Vivek Chabbra has a challenging job to grow the market share of flagship Tiger beer in India but in the same gulp he also has to stay independent.

It is an interesting situation globally as APB is a join venture between Dutch brewing giant Heineken and real estate player Fraser and Neave.

But in India Heineken has also picked up a 37 per cent stake in Vijay Mallya-controlled United Breweries Group and Mallya has made it very clear that Heineken cannot operate in the same market via two competing channels.

"For us it is business as usual, as we don't get bogged down by issues of shareholder agreement," said Chabbra.

But Analysts say it is only a matter of time when Mallya would force Heineken to merge APB's India operations with UB Group.

Chabbra views this as a hypothetical situation, and is hopeful that F&N and Heineken's will work things out.

That may be a tough call but APB is not waiting to scale up, as they have 3 brands in India with a share of less than 4 per cent which needs a boost.

The three breweries is also getting expanded and another greenfield one for the north India market may soon be a reality.

According to Chabbra the company can’t continue to serve the north market from Aurangabad facility and will look at typically a 3 million case brewery at about Rs 100 crore.

Will Tiger roar in the 158 million cases Indian market? Well, for this Chabbra has to get the strategy right!