Greene King has sold its brewing operations and pubs to Hong Kong based CKA for a large sum of money.
The immediate thought is that this might place the brewing of Greene King beers and thousands of jobs at risk and I havent seen anything in news coverage so far to suggest that this might not be a possibility.
The wider point however is that it underlines the crisis that the Beerage and the political party they support are in.
Greene King is the second large brewer to sell this year, the first being Fullers to Asahi. Both brewers are long term supporters of the Tory Party, which is essentially what the Beerage has represented since the nineteenth century.
One might say that the appearance of David Cameron at Greene King’s Bury St Edmunds brewery during the 2015 Election campaign was a sign that it wouldnt end well but there are more serious points.
Brewing is dominated by global brewing concerns- ABI, Heineken, Coors, Kirin and so on. Do they have much interest in which political party is in Government in a particular country? Its marginal. Obviously they want the best competitive market but if its not available there are other countries and markets.
The fact that such stalwarts of the Beerage as Fullers and Greene King have both chosen to bail out this year however may also reflect their perspective on the future of British capitalism and its historic political representative the Tory Party.
All that aside the battle is on to defend the brewery, the beers, the pubs and all the jobs that go with. I wonder if the current Prime Minister has any comment?
Update
Lex in the Financial Times (20th August) makes a key point echoed by Roger Protz and others on social media, namely that what CKA are interested in is the property holding of Greene King- the pubs- more than the beer.
Lex comments ‘This a real estate deal, not about beer’ Whether CKA intend simply to keep that as a book value (in the near future to offset substantial losses from the Hong Kong crisis) or actually sell off pubs is unclear
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