Robert Breare, whose Noble House company is stalking Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries, has been talking to rival regional brewer Greene King about involvement in a bid, it is understood.
The East Anglian brewer is beginning to build a portfolio of famous cask ales, with Old Speckled Hen and Ruddles County added to its own Abbot Ale, and the W&D-owned Marston's Pedigree, brewed at Burton upon Trent, would give it another big-hitting real ale brand.
Breare already has Enterprise Inns on board as purchaser of up to 1,000 of the 1,800 W&D pubs if a bid is successful. A buyer exists for W&D's Cameron's brewery in Hartlepool, in the shape of Castle Eden, the independent owner of the former Whitbread brewery in the North East, which wants to move to bigger premises.
At the same time a management buyout has been proposed at Mansfield, one of the four breweries in the W&D empire. One of the backers of the MBO, Alan Meale, the local MP, said that a chief executive and a board of directors were already in place and "ready to get to work" to run what would be a publess company selling its beers to anyone who wanted them.
W&D's original brewery in the heart of Wolverhampton would bring in millions if sold for development, meaning that Breare's team now appears to have disposals drafted out for all the parts of the W&D empire it would not want, leaving it with 700-plus prime managed houses.
Meanwhile the proposed MBO by W&D's chairman at the troubled regional giant has still to appear while the company considers its much-waited-for strategic review.
The East Anglian brewer is beginning to build a portfolio of famous cask ales, with Old Speckled Hen and Ruddles County added to its own Abbot Ale, and the W&D-owned Marston's Pedigree, brewed at Burton upon Trent, would give it another big-hitting real ale brand.
Breare already has Enterprise Inns on board as purchaser of up to 1,000 of the 1,800 W&D pubs if a bid is successful. A buyer exists for W&D's Cameron's brewery in Hartlepool, in the shape of Castle Eden, the independent owner of the former Whitbread brewery in the North East, which wants to move to bigger premises.
At the same time a management buyout has been proposed at Mansfield, one of the four breweries in the W&D empire. One of the backers of the MBO, Alan Meale, the local MP, said that a chief executive and a board of directors were already in place and "ready to get to work" to run what would be a publess company selling its beers to anyone who wanted them.
W&D's original brewery in the heart of Wolverhampton would bring in millions if sold for development, meaning that Breare's team now appears to have disposals drafted out for all the parts of the W&D empire it would not want, leaving it with 700-plus prime managed houses.
Meanwhile the proposed MBO by W&D's chairman at the troubled regional giant has still to appear while the company considers its much-waited-for strategic review.
