Heineken sells Finnish brewery to Unibrew

Dutch brewer Heineken has sold its Finnish business Oy Hartwall to Danish Royal Unibrew for 2.8 billion Danish krone (£470m).

The transaction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year and is still subject to closing conditions, including anti-trust approvals and has to be approved by Estonian competition authorities.

The two brewers have also agreed to extend their current partnership, with Royal Unibrew’s being given a licence to brew Heineken in Finland and the Baltic states, as it already does in Denmark, for the next 10 years.

Hartwall meanwhile will stay the exclusive distributor of other Heineken brands in Finland, including: Sol, Strongbow, Newcastle Brown Ale and Murphy’s Irish Stout.

It will also continue to brew Foster’s under licence.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Heineken is said to be planning to purchase a 75% stake in Multi Bintang Indonesia from Asia Pacific Breweries.

Technically, following the brewer’s purchasing of Fraser & Neave’s shares in APB last year, Heineken already owns 75% of MBI.

However, Heinken’s proposal to buy 15,823,570 shares for 18.99 trillion Indonesian rupiah, will be discussed at a shareholder’s meeting on 16 July.

Heineken did not need to launch a tender offer as the purchase will not change any of the existing shareholders.