BrewDog sells 22 percent stake to private equity
Were they desperate for cash to fund their global expansion or plain shrewd? In any case, the move by Scottish craft brewer BrewDog to sell a 22 percent stake in the company to San Francisco-based private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners certainly took the industry by surprise.
On 11 April 2017 BrewDog’s founders James Watt and Martin Dickie announced they had sold the stake for GBP 213 million (USD 267 million), having been in discussions with TSG since January this year. They believe that TSG can support their ambition of eventually going public – a move previously scheduled for 2020.
Some GBP 100 million (USD 125 million) will be invested in the business while TSG, which also owns US brewer Pabst, spent GBP 113 million on buying shares from existing investors.
Mr Watt and Mr Dickie are understood to have made GBP 100 million between them from the sale. As a consequence, Mr Watt’s stake will drop from 35 percent to 25 percent, although he will remain the largest shareholder. Mr Dickie’s share will fall from 30 percent to 22 percent, it was reported.
BrewDog’s army of nearly 50,000 “Equity Punks”, its name for its crowdfunding investors, will be able to sell up to 15 percent of their shares, the company said.
Most remarkably, TSG’s investment values the company, which posted a GBP 3.8 million (USD 4.7 million) pre-tax profit on GBP 72 million (USD 90 million) of revenues in 2016, at GBP 1 billion (USD 1.25 billion).
Separately, BrewDog announced they want to build breweries in Australia and Asia. They already operate a brewery each in Scotland and the US, as well as around 40 bars globally.
