Trust sells £6.57m of W&DB shares
A staff trust has sold £6.57m of Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries' shares. The annoucement that Baily Thomas Charitable Trust had disposed of 1,390,496 shares was made to the stock market Wednesday morning.
The shares are currently priced at 472.5p.
Baily Thomas is a charitable trust set-up for the interests of brewery workers. A W&DB spokesman said it had top-sliced its holdings in order to establish a more balanced portfolio. "Wolves was the only stock it owned so it is not unnatural for it to look to build a more traditional share-portfolio with a spread of interests," he said.
It is thought the £6.57m will be re-invested elsewhere. It is unlikely the W&DB price will come under pressure as a result.
The company defended a hostile takeover bid from Pubmaster, the WestLB Panmure-backed pub company earlier this year.
The company persuaded investors to reject the bid, which, at 513p-a-share, would have valued the company at £485m.
The shareholders returned 53 per cent in favour of the current management, in one of the closest takeover battles of recent years.
Part of Wolves successful defence was the promise to return some £200m to shareholders. It planned to generate £100m of that figure through disposals, of which it has so far raised £60m.
The company has said the Pitcher & Piano chain of bars is on the 'for sale' list but has yet to agree a price with any potential buyer.
Regent Inns, owner of the Walkabout and Jongleur brands, was said to be interested and made a cash offer of £62m. This was rejected and it is thought Regent's interest has subsequently cooled.
SFI, the bar chain, was also said to be interested, but only at £55m.
W&DB is now said to be open to offers in the region of £60-70m but has said it is by no means a forced seller of the P&P chain.
Related stories:
Regent to drop bid for £65m bar chain (05 September 2001)
Pubmaster fails to buy W&DB (13 August 2001)
