Russia: Baltica`s minority shareholders bring in the court S&N and Carlsberg

Scottish & Newcastle PLC together with Carlsberg have been brought in the court by minority shareholders of Russian Baltika, a brewery in which their Baltic Beverages Holding AB has a stake of 74.5 % said UK focus on August 1.

BHH, a 50-50 venture between S&N and Carlsberg, plans to consolidate its majority stakes in five separate Russian breweries. This involves the largest brewery, Baltika, buying out the other four. As part of the consolidation transactions, Carlsberg and S&N proposed at a Baltika general meeting of shareholders early last month that Baltika buy both BBH and minority shareholders out of Pikra, a small Siberian brewery, which would cost Baltika more than 500 million DKR.

But the dissatisfied minority shareholders in Baltika, led by a financial group, Alfa-Eco, want a court of arbitration in St Petersburg to annul the result of that meeting. Alfa-Eco wants the court to rule that the Finnish investment company Hartwall Capital is a party in the case. Under Russian law, this would prevent it from voting on the proposed consolidation transactions, which require a majority among the minority shareholders.

03 August, 2005