Britvic gets set to float
Britvic is on its way to the stock market. The three former brewers controlling Britain's second largest soft drink group have agreed a timetable which could see trading in the shares start, assuming investors are receptive, at the beginning of next year. Old brewers InterContinental Hotels (once Bass), Allied Domecq and Whitbread have, together with US giant PepsiCo, owned Britvic for years. Their involvement is a throwback to the days when brewers controlled most of the non-beer drinks sold in their pubs. Indeed the present Britvic the parent company is Britannia Soft Drinks was formed to serve the beerage. But in the past decade or so, as brewery influence weakened, it has evolved into a highly-successful broadly-based soft-drink group. Just when Britvic floats remains to be seen. InterContinental, the major shareholder, and the other backers have given themselves a three-year period from the start of next year to offer shares to investors. I believe they will do so at the earliest opportunity. Their decision follows a number of unsuccessful attempts to sell the business. However, it is thought that PepsiCo, which has just signed a 15-year trading deal with Britvic, was reluctant to unload. I cannot recall the last time a leading British drink maker achieved a share presence. SABMiller, the South African group, obtained a full listing five years ago. And Irish drinks group, C&C (the Cantrell & Cochran soft drink maker) abandoned flotation plans two years ago. But it has recently sold an Italian spirits business, Barbero, to another Italian group, Campari, for £104m. The cash injection has cut debt and C&C, a management buyout from Allied in 1998, is now resurrecting its share-sale plans and will beat Britvic to the stock market. With Diageo and Allied dominating the spirits industry and the bigger, independent brewers seemingly uninterested in floating, there are not many big drink producers left to tap City investors. I suspect some of the unquoted retail companies will eventually seek a flotation. Spirit, the pub chain selling its Premier Lodge budget hotels, could make a move this year. And one Premier bidder, City stockbroker Collins Stewart, would float the business if its offer succeeds. It has already successfully bought and floated Centre Parcs, the holiday centre group once owned by Scottish & Newcastle Bidders, it seems, are lining up for the 132 budget hotels. They include Whitbread and the De Vere hotels group, which has teamed up with Hugh Osmond, the man who created Punch Taverns and tried to block the Six Continents demerger that created InterContinental and Mitchells & Butlers. Just to add to the unending merry-go-round 6C was, of course, once upon a time also called Bass. It is truly strange how the wheels of ownership go round and round. Take Premier. Should the De Vere offer succeed it would mean that old brewer Greenall Whitley (or at least its immediate successor Greenalls) would reclaim a hotel chain it actually started and then sold to Scottish.
