Farewell then, Scottish & Newcastle
On 31 March Scottish & Newcastle’s shareholders accepted an GBP 10 billion bid for their company.
Shareholders in Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) have voted overwhelmingly to back the GBP 10 billion bid for Britain’s biggest brewer by a consortium of Carlsberg and Heineken. The decision requires further court approval with the final handover expected to take place on April 28.
The decision will result in S&N’s businesses in the UK and Ireland, Finland, Portugal, Belgium and India going to Dutch multinational Heineken; with S&N’s businesses in France, Greece, Russia, China and Vietnam going to Danish brewer Carlsberg.
S&N chairman Sir Brian Stewart told shareholders it was a “momentous and historic day for Scottish & Newcastle, Britain’s largest brewer and one of Scotland’s oldest independent companies.”
S&N was founded 259 years ago in Edinburgh and first listed on the stock market over 120 years ago.
Sir Brian said: “While there is sadness at the passing of two and a half centuries of brewing history, the prevalent emotion today is pride: pride in our people in building such a valuable and desirable global business; pride that our strong brands and the Scottish & Newcastle spirit will continue; pride that the vast majority of our colleagues will have new opportunities in the businesses in which they will play an integral part; pride that we achieved a strong price for shareholders in increasingly weak world markets.”
Whether it’s true or not, he would say that, wouldn’t he?
To date, Carlsberg has done fine when it comes to regulatory approval. Early in March the European Commission decided that the proposed transaction would not lead to competition concerns in any of the markets considered. Only Heineken still awaits its clearing. The European Commission pushed back the deadline by which it must decide on the deal. The merger review was delayed to 4 April from 18 March because the Irish authorities have asked that they may review that part of the deal themselves that refers to the Irish market.
