Tennent’s owner C&C acquires Innis & Gunn – Daily Business

C&C Group, the Irish company behind Tennent’s, has acquired the Innis & Gunn brand and associated intellectual property from its administrators for £4.5m.

It is the second Scottish beer company to be sold this week following the cut-price sale of BrewDog to US firm Tilray Brands.

Dublin-based C&C, which also owns Magners and Bulmers cider, has been a small shareholder in Edinburgh company Innis & Gunn for a number of years and brews some of its beers at the Wellpark brewery in Glasgow.

In a statement to the stock exchange, C&C said: “The integration of Innis & Gunn into the group is expected to present a very low execution risk, with the brand being fully absorbed into the group’s existing operational, commercial and supply chain infrastructure.

C&C intends to develop the Innis & Gunn brand using its established production capability, routes to market and infrastructure, “leveraging existing capabilities to unlock brand value with minimal requirement for incremental overhead or capital investment”.

Chief executive Roger White, who previously led Irn-Bru manufacturer AG Barr, said: “We have worked with Innis & Gunn for many years and whilst it’s under difficult circumstances, we are delighted to bring the brand fully into our portfolio.

“This is a compelling and highly synergistic opportunity to save a well-loved brand for which we currently brew most of the product.

“Our existing brewing and route-to-market platform allows us to integrate the brand effectively and quickly, supporting the ongoing supply of products to customers and consumers – we expect this acquisition to make a small positive contribution to our overall financial performance in full-year 2027.”

Innis & Gunn, founded by Dougal Sharp, had raised money from investors to build a brewery on the Heriot-Watt university campus but after dropping the plan it acquired the Inveralmond Brewery, in Perth in 2016 and outsourced other production to C&C.

There was no statement regarding the impact of the acquisition on the management and employees of Innis & Gunn.