S&N advisers rack up £50m bill

Mergers and acquisitions are conceived to heighten efficiency and cut costs, but a report published in this morning’s Times has laid bare the enormous sums that are being expended in the ongoing S&N saga. The company is likely to have spent a whopping £50m on lawyers and financial advisers in a bid to retain independence.

The group has revealed that it spent  £9m last year defending itself from the joint bid by Carlsberg and Heineken. But the newspaper has learnt that the eventual total is likely to top £50m. The principle beneficiaries have been lawyers Linklaters and Hammarskiold, and advisers UBS Deutsche Bank, Rothschild and FHS. The ongoing wrangle between S&N and Carlsberg over its joint ownership of Baltic Beverage Holdings is said to have exacerbated an already highly complicated situation.
The £50m bill comes at a time when the company is struggling in a stagnant market. In its final set of independent results yesterday, the firm reported a loss of £105m in 2007.

Ben Grant, 20/2/08