E-Malt.com News article: The Netherlands: Heineken to restate Scottish & Newcastle's accounts

Dutch brewer Heineken plans to restate accounts for its newly acquired Scottish & Newcastle (S&N), a spokeswoman said on July 7, partially confirming a report in Britain's Sunday Telegraph, according to Reuters.

"We are assessing the assets we have bought and we are putting them in light of our own approach to reporting and accounting," the spokeswoman said, adding the firm was aiming to inform the market of any relevant changes at the end of August.

Shares in the world's third largest brewer slipped more than 3 percent on Monday following the report over the weekend, but some analysts did not expect a restatement to have any major impact on the company's overall results.

"It's not such a drama in itself," said Petercam analyst Kris Kippers. "If you look at S&N, it doesn't weigh out that much for the total company so it will probably only have an effect of about 2 or 3 percent on the overall numbers."

"It's better for Heineken to do it now than do it within six or 12 months."

The Sunday Telegraph reported the firm is set to restate profit for S&N by as much as 10 percent after finding discrepancies in its accounts, citing analysts.

Heineken's spokeswoman would not comment on the scale of the restatement but said the company was more conservative than S&N in its accounting processes.

"What you see with acquisitions is that the figures have often been beefed up to look good and to incur a higher bid price," said Marcel Hooijmaijers, analyst at Kepler Equities.

Shares in Heineken were 3.5 percent lower at 30.8 euros by 1104 GMT after earlier falling as low as 30.36 euros, making it the top loser on the DJ Stoxx European food and beverages index , which was down 0.26 percent.

Heineken in January jointly agreed with Carlsberg a 7.8 billion pound bid to carve up Britain's biggest brewer, but has since been criticised for the purchase, as it increases Heineken's exposure to slower-growing markets of western Europe.


09 July, 2008