Tilray CEO Irwin Simon has defended the deal that saw the US fmcg giant purchase leading UK craft brewer BrewDog out of administration, insisting the £33m it paid was “ultimately only a great bargain if we can make it work”.
Simon told The Morning Advertiser’s sister site, The Grocer, that the price paid reflected the precarious financial position in which BrewDog found itself, and the lack of time Tilray had to prepare its offer for the ailing beer business.
“This was not a traditional purchase, so we didn’t have time to do due diligence,” he said. “We didn’t have time to do reps and warranty and didn’t have time to get out there and visit and meet with management.”
Considered purely in the terms of the brand, team and “incredible” brewing facility Tilray had acquired, the BrewDog acquisition was “a great deal for us”, Simon conceded.
However, the Scottish brewer now required “plenty of investment” to “pull it all together and make it work”, he said.
“There’s a tonne of money that has got to be ploughed into this business to just get it started again,” he said. “Day one there was no money left. There was no payroll to pay employees, there were vendors that would have stopped supplying this business if they didn’t start getting paid.”
Previous interest
Tilray had looked at buying BrewDog in the past but previous valuations of the business had been “too rich for my blood”, Simon said.
“I’m good at math but the numbers never, ever added up to me on those valuations,” he said. “It was easy to say ‘no, I’m not interested.’”
- You can read the full article on The Grocer, here.
