London Brewery Dividend Dries Up

Once it was the only sure bet on the London Stock Exchange.

For about $8, the price of one share in Young & Co.’s Brewery, you got a permanent ticket to the company’s annual meeting, where the food was good and the beer flowed like wine.

As hundreds of people figured this out, Young’s meetings evolved into raucous parties where investors might guzzle 10 pints of their company’s beer. One annual meeting lasted nine minutes, erupting into cheers as hundreds of shareholders lunged for the beer.

But like all good things, this quirky bit of corporate Britain has come to an end, with no last call.

After years of trying to control the revelry, Chairman John Young decided the next meeting in July will be all business and no beer. In a letter to stockholders, he called the bingeing “unjustifiable and unfair.” He called the new no-refreshment policy “of benefit to all shareholders.”

“What a mean lot,” said Frances Brace, a spokeswoman for the Greene King brewery.