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Burtonwood Brewery Buyout.

United Kingdom: British largest regional brewer Wolverhampton & Dudley announced on December 3 it is acquiring small rival Burtonwood brewery for

119 million GBP after meeting forecasts with a 6.3 % rise in annual profit. "Burtonwood has an excellent estate of 460 pubs which are a good geographic fit with our existing 1,675 pubs," W&DB Chief Executive Ralph Findlay said on Friday, December 3. "There are significant opportunities to develop further the Burtonwood estate under the ownership of W&DB," he added. Ralph Findlay said he expected the Burtonwood deal to be concluded by early January. Refurbishment would follow and food menus would be expanded, he added.

Wolves & Dudley said it would be able to make 3 million pounds a year in cost savings from the combination and would supply the new pubs with its own beers, such as Marston's Pedigree. W&DB posted underlying pretax profit of 77.7 million pounds for the 53 weeks to October 2, compared with analyst forecasts between 76 million and 78 million pounds.

Over 400 of the Burtonwood pubs will be operated by W&DB's tenanted Union Pub Company, which generated a 4.2 percent increase in like-for-like sales in the first 8 weeks of this year. The rest will join its managed Pathfinder Pubs, which include the Pitcher & Piano chain and reported a 3.2 percent increase in like-for-like sales, according to Reuters.

W&DB increased its dividend by 10 percent to 35.32 pence per share. Its shares closed at 947 pence on Thursday, valuing the group at 758.5 million pounds.

05 December, 2004
Reply to
<freeminer
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Hi Don, as mentioned elsewhere, Burtonwood haven't been a brewery for a wee while (they dropped the "brewery" bit of their name when they sold their stake in the ThomasHardy-Burtonwood brewery) it's the pubco which is being sold to W&D.

There are a couple of Burtonwood pubs near where I live, I was one a month or two ago & they had none of 'their own' beer on. cheers, MikeMcG. (Don, have you noticed the liveliness of your Goldminer, when it's had a bit of age on it? Still tasted lovely tho - the bit I got in the glass ;~)

Reply to
MikeMcG

I always thought the Burtonwood beers were pretty nondescript. Burtonwood pubs also used to sell the keg and cask versions of the bitter side by side, and generally if you asked for bitter you got the keg - you had to ask for 'trad' to get the cask. On balance, I think these pubs will improve if they start selling something like Pedigree or Bonks's.

Best regards, Paul

-- Paul Sherwin Consulting

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Reply to
Paul Sherwin

This is not a definite statement but I just rang a friend who is a retired BW employee. The tale that they have heard is that the BW office staff are to be made redundant but the brewing staff are still producing. What they are brewing isn't known by my informant.

-- Dave Croft Warrington

Reply to
Dave Croft

Yep, the pubs are being sold to W&D, the brewery itself was sold a good while back (bought out by their partner - Thomas Hardy Brewing & Packaging)

I presume they brew some of the Refresh brands? I haven't yet got a

2005GBG - does that shed any light?

Plus if you have alook at Thomas Hardy Brewing's website there's a great pride in the uality of their alcopops :-(

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Until the summer they were brewing Brakspear Bitter & Special (now moved to Wychwood)

As I mentioned elsewhere, confusingly they do not brew Thomas Hardy Ale or the former EP beers (but O'Hanlon's do!) cheers MikeMcG

Reply to
MikeMcG

Hardy (Refresh) brew Burtonwood and Morrells beers, a couple of "Indian" beers, some minor national lager brands and an increasing amount of stuff for S&N .... Magnet has recently been transferred.

Cheers

Reply to
Mark Enderby

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