If Scottish & Newcastle, one of Scotland’s biggest listed companies, ends up succumbing to a foreign break-up bid, it may be down to a fellow Scotsman. It was Sir Fred Goodwin and Royal Bank of Scotland who this year blazed the trail for large, complex, cross-border, multi-bidder break-up transactions with his successful tilt at ABN Amro. If, the thinking goes, Sir Fred and his partners at Santander and Fortis could successfully finesse a deal as delicate and difficult as ABN, then the takeover and dismemberment of S&N should be a doddle.

The tentative plan from Carlsberg and Heineken looks a model of simplicity compared with ABN. Brewing is politically less sensitive than banking, and unregulated. The credit crunch is a much less complicating factor. There are only two in the consortium rather than three. The likely price is about a fifth of ABN. And it would be an all-cash deal, which simplifies the financing and the decision-making for S&N shareholders.

Even the Scottish card – played so brilliantly by Sir Alick Rankin when an Aussie by the name of John Elliott made an earlier hostile bid for S&N back in 1989 – is unlikely to work this time. S&N has rather neglected its Scottish roots, and ScottishPower fell to a Spanish bidder this year with barely a whimper of nationalist protest.

The plan is at an early stage. Carlsberg and Heineken were flushed out prematurely by a leak. The appeal of S&N is obvious. Carlsberg wants to seize full control of S&N’s jewel, Baltic Beverages Holding, which is a 50/50 joint venture between the two sides held under a “shotgun” arrangement. A bid for all of S&N enables it to make a play for 100 per cent of the Baltika brewer without jeopardising the 50 per cent it already owns.

For Heineken, a deal would make it the biggest brewer in Britain in one fell swoop and give it an excellent distribution arm for its Heineken and Amstel lagers. The careful carve-up of the spoils should alleviate any monopolies concerns, the glitch that did for Mr Elliott and Elders IXL.

The S&N camp has responded in time-honoured fashion, ridiculing the approach as unsolicited and unwelcome, taking a swipe at Carlsberg for its discourtesy in not picking up the phone before its botched announcement, and of course trumpeting its golden prospects as a continuing independent entity.

But it somehow doesn’t look as though its heart is in it. The globalisation of beer brands goes on apace. Indeed, the very brew S&N sneered at when Mr Elliott came knocking 18 years ago, Foster’s, is now a top-seller in S&N’s own cellar. The most successful brewers are those with the reach to promote a single brand around the globe. Consolidation is the game and S&N is seen as a consolidatee rather than consolidator.

Others will take a look and it may not be Carlsberg and Heineken that end up owning S&N. But the 19 per cent surge in the shares yesterday underscores the fact that the market expects someone to clinch a deal. At these levels, S&N will sell for a pricey 20 or more times expected profits this year. But for jewels like Baltika, strong market power in the UK and exciting footholds in India and China, it’s a price someone will be prepared to pay.

patrick.hosking@thetimes.co.uk

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