The Carlsberg and Heineken consortium raised its offer for Scottish & Newcastle by 30p a share today, valuing the Scottish-based brewer at £7.3 billion.

Carlsberg called the new offer a “full and fair” price, pointing out that it valued the group at a considerable premium to its value as an independent entity.

The increased offer sent Scottish & Newcastle shares 3 per cent higher to 766p in early trade.

In a statement, the consortium said that its offer for S&N represented a premium of 41 per cent to the company’s share price of 531p in March 2007, before speculation began that an offer might emerge for the Scottish group.

The raised offer comes a week ahead of a trading update from S&N, which is expected to reveal a patchy performance.

Jorgen Buhl Rasmussen, the chief executive of Carlsberg, said: “The consortium’s increased proposal of 750p per share offers S&N’s shareholders the opportunity to secure a full and fair price for the entire business.

"Carlsberg will only proceed with a transaction if it believes it is in the interests of shareholders.”

Mr Rasmussen said that the consortium had decided to put its increased offer directly to shareholders, in the light of S&N’s “cursory dismissal” of its first offer and its refusal to engage in discussions with Carlsberg and Heineken.

Carlsberg also sounded the alarm bell over S&N's proposed sale of its Elidis business in France, saying that such a divestment may be detrimental to the value of the French business.

"We would therefore encourage the S&N board to postpone entering into any binding agreement on such a divestment until Carlsberg has had an opportunity to assess the full implications of such a divestment," the statement read.

The statement also pointed out that S&N said this month that it was facing “challenging conditions” across Western Europe.

Carlsberg reminded shareholders that Western Europe provided the significant majority of S&N’s revenues, operating profits and operating cash flows.

Tensions between the Carlsberg camp and S&N are also revealed in a paragraph relating to Baltic Beverages Holding (BBH), its Russian joint venture with Carlsberg.

S&N caused a stir last week when it asked Carlsberg to release additional forecast information on the joint venture.

Carlsberg said today that it would co-operate with S&N in providing more information, subject to the consent of the BBH board.

"We are just trying to be as transparent as possible here," a spokesman for Carlsberg said.

"We want to explain to shareholders the rationale behind our offer. It's a good price and we would like S&N to start to engage in a discussion with us."

Carlsberg has made it clear that it will not make a hostile approach for the company.

It believes that the trend towards global consolidation in the brewing industry means that S&N will be unable to remain independent.

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