Carlsberg Breweries will find it easier to raise cash in the event of an investment opportunity if it was listed on the stock exchange, the company’s CEO said in a statement. "It could be favourable to have a stock listing if we have a good investment opportunity," CEO Nils Smedegaard Andersen told Norwegian business daily Finansavisen. "Hopefully, a listing would be combined with a share issue in Carlsberg Breweries," he said.

Carlsberg Breweries is 40% owned by the Norwegian industrial group Orkla and 60% owned by Carlsberg A/S. The two companies do have an agreement that could make a listing possible.

However, Orkla spokesman Ole Kristian Lunde was quoted by Reuters as saying: "It is correct that we have a deal about possible bourse listing, but we do not see any great need from our side to use that possibility now."

29 August, 2003