Some traders believe the story is merely hype, and some brokers say that any such deal would be defeated by competition issues. Nevertheless, nearly 45m shares in Scottish & Newcastle, the UK’s biggest brewer, changed hands on Thursday – almost seven times its daily volume – as they rose 12 per cent amid intensifying takeover rumours. S&N’s shares rose 64p to 595p, their highest since July 2002, on speculation that the brewer could be a takeover target for Heineken, Carlsberg or a private equity firm. The rumours emerged on the day an analyst at a Dresdner Kleinwort investor conference in Dublin mentioned the possibility of a private equity takeover of S&N or merger with Carlsberg, with which S&N has a successful Russian joint venture, Baltic Beverages Holding. Even though the analyst played down the likelihood of either scenario, the suggestion acquired a life of its own, as FT Alphaville noted on Thursday.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Friday, March 30th, 2007 at 5:47 and is filed under Capital markets, M&A, Private equity. Tagged with carlsburg, heineken, scottish & newcastle. Edit this entry.