The £3.3bn takeover of the UK soft drinks maker Britvic by the Danish brewer Carlsberg has received the go-ahead from Britain’s competition watchdog, raising fears of job losses.
The Competition and Markets Authority said it had cleared the proposed deal, a day before the deadline for the first phase of its investigation into the takeover.
The watchdog began studying the deal in late October and said it would publish a full statement with the reasons for its decision to approve the deal later on Tuesday.
Britvic, which makes well-known drinks such as Robinsons squash, J20 and R White’s lemonade, accepted a £13.15-a-share offer from Carlsberg in July.
The company will be called Carlsberg Britvic, and combine Britvic’s soft drinks portfolio with Carlsberg’s beer offering, which includes Kronenbourg 1664 and Brooklyn, creating a beverage “powerhouse” in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, according to the Danish company. The deal is expected to be completed in January.
A spokesperson said: “The combination of Carlsberg and Britvic will create a highly attractive multi-beverage supplier in the UK, with an efficient supply chain and distribution network that provides our customers with a portfolio of market leading brands and world-class service.”
Carlsberg hopes to make annual cost savings of £100m over five years as a result of the deal. The Unite union said in July that proposals to cut 1% of jobs across the combined workforce could lead to hundreds of roles being lost, mostly in the UK.
Carlsberg and Britvic declined to comment. In July, Carlsberg said it would carry out a detailed review of Britvic’s business to assess how it can be “most effectively and efficiently integrated with Carlsberg’s operations”.
This could mean that some jobs go in administration and management. The firm also promised “significant investment in the combined group’s sales functions in the UK and Ireland, with the addition of a significant number of new sales representatives”.
The company’s brewery network includes the Carlsberg brewery in Northampton, Marston’s in Burton upon Trent and Banks’s in Wolverhampton, which is to shut next autumn, putting 97 jobs at risk.
Britvic employs 4,500 people, including 2,000 in the UK. A decade ago, the company closed its bottling plant in Chelmsford in Essex, where it was founded, but it still has factories in Rugby, London and Leeds, and centres in the Midlands towns of Lutterworth, Solihull and Tamworth.
The UK drinks maker had rejected previous takeover offers from Carlsberg on the grounds that they undervalued the company.
Britvic, headquartered in Hemel Hempstead to the north of London, was founded in the 1930s as the British Vitamin Products Company and used soft drinks as an affordable way of supplying health supplements to consumers. It has 39 brands and operates in more than 100 countries including Brazil, France and Ireland.
It also has an exclusive licence with PepsiCo in Great Britain and Ireland to make and sell Pepsi Max, 7UP, Rockstar Energy and Lipton Ice Tea.
Carlsberg has said previously it had secured an agreement from PepsiCo to waive a clause in its bottling contract with Britvic that would have allowed it to cancel the arrangement in the event of a change of ownership.
Britvic is well known for its Robinsons brand, which had a sponsorship partnership with the Wimbledon tennis tournament that was one of the longest-running in sport, lasting for 86 years before it ended in 2022. Robinsons was acquired by Britvic in 1995.
