Comfort of strangers

Scottish&Newcastle’s sale of its leisure division (Center Parc holiday villages and Pontin’s holiday camps), announced in February, has been delayed as the value of the division has slowly dropped to an estimated £700 million. The company said that it expects to make a formal announcement later this summer, blaming a fire at one of the units for the hold-up.
Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) also reported a 5% rise in profits before tax, exceptionals and amortisation of goodwill to £408.6 million for the year ended 30 April 2000. Pre-tax profits after adjustments were £262 million compared with £323.7 million last year. Turnover was up 8% to £3.6 billion, from £3.3 billion in 1999. Earnings per share were 29.9p compared with 38.7p in 1999.4% stake in Spanish brewer Mahou..

By selling its leisure division, S&N hopes to focus on its pub retail and brewing interests.
The company bought Da-none’s Kronenbourg earlier this year in a deal worth £1.72 billion, which received regulatory approval by the European Commission in July.
The deal gives S&N a Euro-pean platform for growth, since in the UK Scottish Courage could increase sales by 4.7% thanks to five key brands only - Foster’s, Miller, Beck’s, Kronenbourg and John Smith’s. These brands grew 10% and now account for 74% of branded volume.
In the wake of S&N releasing its annual figures, S&N’s shares fell nearly 8%, wiping out more than £240 million of its market value. On top of this, the City warned that S&N could become a take-over victim because of its poor cash flow. S&N is 79% geared and future cash flow will be used to buy the remainder of Kronenbourg over the next three years and to exercise the option to buy Danone’s 33. And to round off a PR calamity week, the UK’s weekly The Observer wrote that S&N was undergoing a "mid-life crisis". The comfort of strangers, indeed.