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 in a pre-pack administration 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 Edinburg company Innis & Gunn for a number of years and brews some of its beers at the Wellpark brewery in Glasgow.

The administration was handled by FTI Consulting. The three taprooms in Edinburgh and Glasgow will close and the Perth brewery will be surplus to requirements, resulting in more than 100 job losses.

Innis & Gunn founder Dougal Gunn Sharp said: “Today is a very difficult day, first and foremost for the brilliant people who have worked so hard to build Innis & Gunn over the past 23 years.

“I’m immensely proud of everything our team achieved together, creating a distinctive Scottish beer brand enjoyed by customers at home and around the world.

“I’m deeply sorry to everyone affected – particularly my colleagues who have lost their jobs and the shareholders who believed in what we were building. It’s been a bruising process for everyone. 

“While this outcome is not what any of us hoped for, I’m glad the brand has found a home with C&C Group. We’ve worked closely with the team for many years and they have the scale, distribution and experience to take Innis & Gunn forward.

“Despite today’s news, I remain incredibly proud of the brand, the beer and the community that grew around it. I truly hope the next chapter allows Innis & Gunn to fulfil the potential we always believed it had.”

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 made a loss before tax of £982,000 in the year ended 31 March 2025, following a loss of £2.4m in the previous year. Turnover dropped over the same period to £23.6m from £29m.

Mr Sharp raised money from investors to build a brewery on the Heriot-Watt university campus at Riccarton but after dropping the plan in 2016 it acquired the Inveralmond Brewery, in Perth and outsourced other production to C&C.

After the Innis & Gunn AGM in October 2023, Mr Sharp told Daily Business that a sale of the company was on the agenda.

“We hope to sell the company. The most likely outcome is a trade sale,” he said.

He was a fierce critic of the Scottish government’s deposit return scheme and In recent months he has been expressing concern about the rising cost pressures on the pubs trade. In one of his latest statements to the media he warned that the “£10 pint will be a fixture of pubs across the country”.