Heineken offloads Waverley drinks wholesaling arm

HEINEKEN, Britain's biggest brewer after the takeover of Scottish & Newcastle's domestic business two years ago, has sold its Waverley TBS drinks whole-saling arm.

WTBS has been bought by investment and advisory firm Manfield Partners in a deal that also involves a partial WTBS management buy-out led by the company's managing director, Jonathan Townsend.

Among the five partners on the Manfield team is Jeremy Blood, a former managing director of the old S&N, who will replace Mark Gerken as chairman of the drinks wholesaler.

The sale, for an undisclosed sum, follows significant restructuring of WTBS by the Dutch brewing giant following its joint 7.8 billion joint acquisition of S&N with Danish group Carlsberg in 2008.

The drinks wholesaler employs 1,100 staff after 200 job losses were announced this year as part of a restructuring of telesales and distribution.

There is an ongoing process of depot and network changes and a centralisation of WTBS call centres in Felling, Gateshead. The head office is in Hemel Hempstead, with its Scottish operations including 20 people based in Edinburgh at South Gyle, with a main depot in Glasgow and smaller depots in Inverness and Dundee.

Heineken said the sale would allow both it and WTBS to focus on their respective businesses – with the Dutch brewer continuing to sell main brands such as Kronenbourg 1664, Foster's, Heineken and Strongbow through WTBS.

Stefan Orlowski, managing director of Heineken UK, said: "From a Heineken perspective, the sale enables us to better concentrate on our core business, and to focus investment behind our brands.

"For WTBS, it builds on a successful restructuring programme already in place and the new owners will be well-placed to develop the business further, bringing the focus and strategic direction that will come from an independent operation."

Bill Gore, a partner with Manfield, said: "WTBS represents a good opportunity for us as it is a sensible scale in the market, being number one or two alongside (drinks wholesaler] Matthew Clark. It is interesting because while Heineken has done a very good job in repositioning it, we feel it can be even sharper and more effective under independent ownership."

S&N acquired the Beer Seller wholesale drinks group as part of its purchase of the Bulmers cider company in 2004.

It merged with S&N's existing Waverley wine business to form WTBS, which last year had sales of 500 million as it supplied 31,000 national and independent free-trade pubs.

One drinks analyst said yesterday: "It looks a logical sale. Heineken probably sees it as only a peripheral part of the business now.

"And as private equity is involved, Heineken is likely to have received a premium in the price for something they don't now value so highly themselves."