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Ringwood and brands Boondoggle, Old Thumper and Razorback up for sale
thanks cb, just found : carlsberg marston’s brewing company (cmbc) has said it intends to sell its ringwood brewery in southern england.
under proposals outlined by cmbc on wednesday (7 june), the ringwood brewery and the ringwood ale brands – including razorback, old thumper, boondoggle and fortyniner – are to be put on the market for sale.
cmbc also plans to close its logistics operations at ringwood, relocating deliveries to nearby depots at tiverton, farnborough and cardiff.
paul davies, ceo of cmbc, said the decision had been made in light of the scale of investment it believes necessary at the site, which is located in hampshire, near the new forest.
“this is not a decision we have taken lightly – we have incredible respect for the effort and dedication of the team at ringwood,” he said. “however, the brewery’s location in a residential area makes expansion complicated, and as such the investment required to bring its capacity and capability up to the level we need for our business is too great to be a viable path for cmbc.
“to ensure our future growth and simplify the business, we are looking for a new owner for ringwood in the brewing industry, including its excellent range of local ales.”
he added: “we have informed colleagues affected by these proposals at the brewery and our priority now is to support them through this process, and to begin the search for the right buyer for ringwood.”
ringwood brewery was founded in 1978, and, after outgrowing its original premises, moved to the current site in 1986. the brewery was bought by marston’s in 2013, for £19.2m.
eight staff work at the brewery, with five others in a shop on the site. a further 20 are employed in logistics. cmbc declined to comment on the potential impact any sale could have on jobs.
the decision to sell the ringwood brewery is the latest piece of consolidation to take place involving cmbc since the joint venture was formed through the merger of carlsberg’s uk operations and marston’s in 2020.
in september, cmbc announced it was to close the jennings brewery in ****ermouth, north-east england, with the production of its beers moving to cmbc’s marston’s brewery in burton.
jennings brewery was established in 1828 and had been situated in ****ermouth since 1874. the brewery was acquired by marston’s in 2005 but had seen “a significant decline in volumes” since the pandemic, according to cmbc.
in november, cmbc struck a deal to sell its eagle brewery to s.a. damm, with 67 production staff moving over to the spanish production group.
that sale included an arrangement for beers produced at the eagle brewery including birrificio, hobgoblin and angelo poretti to remain a part of cmbc’s portfolio.
last month, cmbc sold its london fields microbrewery to uk pub and bar operator grace land group for an undisclosed sum. grace land intends to use the site to launch its own saint monday beer brand.
Shame, nice beer and more old brands going. However, CMBC are only trying to re-structure following "wreck it "Ralph's decision to pay 19.2 Million for it, ..
Give Ralph a break, in his defence, he is as thick as pig s@@@.
My next fear is wychwood, as that is landlocked with no growth space, they hadn’t dare touch that!
Sounds to me like MARS are just selling off everything to keep going. Ringwood beers were always famously awful. As were Jennings. Eagle not much better. Wouldn't mind to see all of them disappear. Agree Wychwood do a decent beer though not seen it about much recently, except trips to Norfolk. MARS are experts at buying up cr@p brands and then later selling them off at a loss. Two local pubs here sell Ringwood - I wouldn't touch it. People these days go for Neck Oil or Gamma Ray if they want ale or Madri for lagers. BTW Madri has nothing to do with Spain but millions of people have fallen for the clever marketing. Just go to a city centre anywhere and open your eyes. No surprise to me that MARS share price has halved over a year and once an SP hits 30p it is usually soon worth 0p.
The property alone after debt is more than double market cap...so if you like the beer or not, it's still too cheap on a sum of parts.
In fairness Doug, it's CMBC selling here not Marstons, and I'm sure both Marstons and CMBC are doing ok from the premium lager sales which are now popular.
Thunder
I think Mr Market looks beyond simple ratios in the accounts, what I suspect that he is asking is, are they really likely to realise book value of assets if put up for sale.
Given the bear market in propco's I also suspect that he knows the answer.
At these levels they have almost become option money.
Read the interim results RNS, the property sold this year was for 39% above book value. They got bid on at 105p not so long ago. I agree it's an option value but downside is limited from here IMO as simply getting too cheap now
Net asset value (NAV) per share of £0.98 (H1 FY2022: £0.71)
· £24.3 million generated from non-core strategic disposals to date at 39% ahead of net book value, with disposals totalling £50-60 million anticipated in FY2023
Thunder
Well argue with Mr Market, not me, but Mr M is rarely very wrong.
In the short term the market is always wrong and mispriced otherwise there would be no volatility. In the long term it always corrects itself
Best comment I've seen on here. It's good to separate out the short and long term and have a strategy for each. I hold MARS and can see many positives for the long term but have made a profit by trading the short term volatility.