The omission in Carlsberg’s £3bn-plus takeover tilt for Britvic , the UK soft drinks firm behind Robinsons barley water, J2O, Tango and R White’s lemonade, has been resolved. The Danes, pursuing their “beyond beer” strategy, did not forget that PepsiCo could kill the whole adventure by yanking the UK bottling rights for Pepsi, 7Up and Lipton’s Ice Tea from Britvic under a “change of control” clause. The US fizzy drinks titan had agreed to waive the clause if the deal happened, Carlsberg said on Monday.
Since nobody in their right mind would buy Britvic without those rights, this takeover tale would now seem to come down to the simple matter of price. Britvic has already rejected offers at £12 and £12.50 a share, it told the market on Friday .
At what level would its board be obliged to surrender in usual boring fashion and declare that fair value has been reached? Well, one hopes the Britvic directors have stiffened their resolve with something stronger than a Fruit Shoot. If they truly believe their bullish talk in last month’s half-year numbers about “market-leading growth”, “multiple new growth spaces” and “our long-standing track record of delivering outstanding returns for our shareholders”, they should be up for a scrap. The point about Britvic is that, for the first time in ages, it can look forward to vaguely normal trading conditions.
After a sugar tax, a pandemic –which clobbered high-margin sales to pubs and restaurants – and then.
