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PRIVATISATION

V&S’s Beam stake bought by Fortune Brands

US spirits group Fortune Brands has bought Vin & Sprit 's 10 percent stake in Fortune's beverage unit, Beam Global Spirits & Wine, for 2.8 billion Swedish crowns ($464 million), the Swedish government said on Friday.

France’s Pernod Ricard won a battle in March to buy V&S, the Swedish state-owned maker of Absolut Vodka, beating out Fortune, which produces Jim Beam bourbon and owns the rest of wine and spirits company Beam Global.

The 5.6 billion euro ($8.8 billion) Pernod deal did not include V&S’s stake in Beam.

Fortune had been looking to exercise a clause allowing it to buy the V&S stake, although the sides had been unable to agree on a price.

Financial Markets Minister Mats Odell said in a statement that the government had now earned a total 58 billion kronor for the assets of V&S, which will go toward paying off national debt.

Sweden is in the midst of its largest-ever privatization of state assets, an effort the government hopes, will net 200 billion kronor over the course of its four-year mandate.

Pernod said on Wednesday it had closed the V&S acquisition.

“It (the Beam deal) is a good deal … We are very pleased with it,” Odell spokesperson Sarah Lundgren said.

STEEL

Troubled steel plant may be nationalized

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Sunday floated the idea of nationalising during "two or three years" the country's loss-making Ilva steel plant, one of Europe's most polluting.

Troubled steel plant may be nationalized
The loss-making Ilva steel plant, in Taranto, may be nationalised. Donato Fasano/AFP

The Ilva site at Taranto in the Puglia region of southern Italy has been under special government administration since last year after its owners were accused of failing to contain toxic emissions.

"We are considering whether we should intervene in Ilva with a public body," Renzi said in an interview published in the daily La Repubblica.

"We could put the company back on its feet in two or three years, protect jobs, protect the environment and then put it back on the market," he said.

The premier added that he would rather see the steel plant in private hands, but if no solution was found then "I prefer intervening directly for a few years".

International steel giant ArcelorMittal and Italy's Marcegaglia said earlier this week they had submitted a non-bidding offer to acquire Ilva's operations. The bid is being examined by Ilva's special commissioner.

No other offers have come in yet to save the steelworks, which employs 16,000 workers and has the biggest output capacity of any plant in Europe.

It is currently operating at roughly half of its peak production level of 11 million tonnes per year because of weak demand and chronic overcapacity in Europe.

A report by the European Environment Agency on Tuesday named Ilva as one of the 30 worst industrial plants for pollution in Europe.

Renzi is seen as desperate to secure some kind of future for Ilva against a gloomy economic backdrop of a contracting economy and stubbornly high unemployment. He has said he wants a solution for Ilva by Christmas.

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