British, French Companies to Buy Seagram’s

Britain’s Diageo and France’s Pernod Ricard clinched the world’s biggest alcoholic drinks deal, buying Seagram’s wines and spirits empire debt free for $8.15 billion in cash. The Anglo-French bid for the Seagram Co’s portfolio, featuring Chivas Regal whiskey and Captain Morgan rum, beat one from a rival grouping of privately owned Bacardi, Jack Daniel’s whiskey maker Brown-Forman and Absolut vodka owner Vin & Sprit. The two will split up the 76-year-old Seagram business between them, with 61% going to Diageo, and sell off some of the smaller brands, with Diageo providing $5 billion of the funding for the deal and Pernod $3.15 billion. Pernod said it will become the third largest global spirits company after Diageo and Allied Domecq.