S&N shareholders approve Carlsberg & Heineken takeover

Scottish & Newcastle shareholders have approved the takeover bid from Carlsberg and Heineken.

The 800p-a-share offer, which values the company at £7.8bn, was rubber-stamped by shareholders at this morning's Extraordinary General Meeting in Edinburgh.

The decision will result in S&N's businesses in the UK and Ireland, Finland, Portugal, Belgium and India going to Dutch multinational Heineken.

S&N's businesses in France, Greece, Russia, China and Vietnam will transfer to Danish brewer Carlsberg.

S&N chairman Sir Brian Stewart told shareholders it was a "momentous and historic day for Scottish & Newcastle"​.

He said: "While there is sadness at the passing of two and a half centuries of brewing history, the prevalent emotion today is pride.​

"Let me remind you that Scottish & Newcastle today is a top six global brewer - Scotland's largest industrial multinational - in the top half of the FTSE 100 - a market leader in the UK, France, Russia and India - a major exporter to the US; and the world's largest cider maker.

"It is precisely because we have achieved such strong positions worldwide that the company has been so attractive to others in a consolidating world market in brewing.

"Though today may be an end, it is also a beginning; a new opportunity for our people across the globe - including many still based here in Scotland - to grow within a larger worldwide group.

"The company may change, but Scottish & Newcastle lives on through its people."

S&N is expected to be removed from the London Stock Exchange on 25 April with a formal handover three days later.

S&N was founded 259 years ago in Edinburgh and first listed on the stock market over 120 years ago.