Heineken offers up pubs sell-offs to swerve probe over Punch deal

Heineken has served up plans to sell a raft of pubs in a bid to satisfy competition concerns over the Dutch brewer’s £403 million swoop for rival Punch Taverns, it emerged on Tuesday.

The Amstel-maker’s proposals come a fortnight after the Competition and Markets Authority warned that the takeover deal could reduce competition in 33 areas, which may result in offering customers fewer drink choices and higher prices.

The watchdog today said: “Heineken has now offered to sell pubs in each of the affected areas to preserve competition and ensure customers in these locations do not lose out.”

It added that there are “reasonable grounds” for believing that the proposals — or a modified version of them — “might be acceptable to remedy the competition concerns”.

The CMA will now undertake a public consultation and decide by August 22 whether to refer the merger for an in-depth investigation.

The CMA first started its probe in February, shortly after Heineken, working with private-equity firm Patron Capital Advisers, won shareholder approval to buy Punch Taverns.

Of Punch’s approximately 3200-pub estate, Heineken will get around 1900 pubs, giving it a total of about 3000 UK watering holes. Patron will be left with 1329 sites.

Heineken welcomed confirmation it would only have to sell off a small number of pubs.