Big, bigger, monopoly
Those with a long memory - a dying breed, unfortunately - will probably heave a sigh and say: "Back to square one." Or rather back to the days before Maggie Thatcher’s Beer Orders broke up the hold of the country’s Big Six brewers over the nation’s pubs. With the creation of mega-pubcos it is as if the Beer Orders had never come into effect. Recent mergers among the pub companies have resulted in a new complex pub monopoly which may be just as harmful as the monopoly enjoyed by the former British brewers until the late 1980s. In November Punch Taverns announced that it was buying its rival Pubmaster for GBP1.2 billion (EUR1.7 bn) which makes it, temporarily at least, the country’s biggest tenanted and leased pub owner. The deal, worth approx..
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