Osborne Clarke advises Beavertown Brewery on Heineken UK sale

Published by

Peter Davison

Reading-based lawyers at international legal practice Osborne Clarke have advised leading craft-brewer Beavertown on its sale to Heineken UK.

Osborne Clarke advised the founders of Beavertown Brewery on the minority sale to Heineken UK in 2018 and have now also advised on the sale of the remaining shares to Heineken UK, resulting in them assuming full ownership of London’s largest brewery.

Beavertown will continue to be operated separately to Heineken UK with its own functional teams including sales, marketing, brewing and wider existing teams.

It is expected that the new ownership structure will allow the brand to grow significantly and could see up to 50 new jobs being created.

The Osborne Clarke team was led by Reading-based corporate partner Mike Freer assisted by senior associate Oliver Woods and associate Jack Harris.

Rhiannon Jones and Claire Bowles advised on incentives and employment matters, respectively.

Commenting on Osborne Clarke's support on the transaction, Logan Plant, founder and chief executive of Beavertown, said: “Mike and the team at Osborne Clarke have been great once again! Not only did OC assist and advise throughout the first transaction with Heineken UK but they smashed it out the park for the second.

"The level of detail and intensity at which they work left Bridget and I super confident throughout the whole process.”

Osborne Clarke is considered a go-to firm for many companies in the retail sector, acting for household name retailers and in-demand brands while also working with fast-growth start-ups and market challengers.

The international firm advises at every stage of company development and on everything from eCommerce, payments and brand, right through to employee and property issues, fulfilment, franchises and corporate governance and regulation across multiple jurisdictions.

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.