Glasgow-based investment firm Marketing Management Services International (MMSI) has emerged as a surprise bidder to buy the Cains brewing operation and pub estate, writes Ewan Turney.
The Scottish firm, which rescued the Arran Brewery on the Isle of Arran from administration in June this year, confirmed it had made a bid for the whole company to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
MMSI managing director Gerald Michaluk told The Herald: "This is the biggest bid that I have ever made. I am quite confident that it will go through."
He confirmed that the bid included the pub estate and if successful would see the brewery remain open.
The news follows administrators shutting 24 pubs it considered to be unviable at the end of last week.
The Dusanj brothers have also been tipped for a bid for the brewery after it was revealed that the pair still own the freehold in a separate family trust along with 10 freehold pubs.
Caisn had been paying around £500,000 in rent on the brewery. Before its collapse, Cains operated about 115 pubs, of which about 85 are leasehold. Most of the pubs operate as managed houses but about a dozen trade under a tenancy model.
