Hopes of quick sale for brewery dashed

Aug 14 2008 by Alex Turner, Liverpool Daily Post

HOPES of a quick sale of Liverpool brewer Cains were dashed yesterday, as its administrators admitted it will take at least two weeks to assess levels of interest in the firm.

The brewer went into administration last Friday after its bank, the Bank of Scotland, refused to back plans to save the company.

The joint administra-tors David Chubb, Ian Green and Craig Live-sey of Pricewater-houseCoopers (PwC), have received 50 expressions of interest.

Cains employs 100 people at its Toxteth brewery and a further 900 in its pubs division.

A spokeswoman for PwC said: “There have been some 50 expres-sions of interest, but that’s different to a specific offer to buy the brewery. It’s now a question of sifting out ones that are serious and that process will take a couple of weeks.

“For the time being, it’s business as usual. Suppliers, employees and customers have been supportive.”

Sudarghara and Ajmail Dusanj, who had run Cains since 2002, have so far refused to say whether they will seek to regain control of the firm.