Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) is fighting to wrest control of Russian brewery Baltic Beverage Holdings (BBH) away from its partner in the venture, Carlsberg.
S&N hopes this will ward off the recent unwanted takeover approach from Carlsberg and Heineken.
The once state-run brewery in the southern Urals now owns a state-of-the-art factory where capacity doubled last year from 2.2m to 4.5m hectolitres after a $38m (£18.5m) investment.
Russians are switching from vodka to beer drinking in large numbers and annual consumption has grown from 20 litres a head in the late 90s to 67 litres last year.
Russia is now the third biggest world beer market after China and the US.
As the company maintains double-digit growth, it has become central in the S&N takeover battle.
S&N believes it has the right to take control of BBH because Carlsberg has broken the terms of the shareholder agreement.
It also accuses Carlsberg and Heineken of trying to buy S&N “on the cheap” with a 720p a share bid. However, S&N, now Britain’s last major brewer, remains vulnerable to a possible higher bid.
Meanwhile, Carlsberg denies that it has broken the agreement and plans a £3.8bn rights issue to fund the proposed £7.1bn takeover.
Financial Times 27/10/07 page 16 (Companies & Markets), page 19 (The Week)
The Daily Telegraph 27/10/07 page 33 (Comment)
The Independent 27/10/07 page 12 (No Pain, No Gain, Save & Spend)
Daily Mail 27/10/07 page 103 (City & Finance)
