Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) has said its plans to boost shareholder value will "vindicate" its decision to reject a takeover bid by rival brewers.
Britain's biggest brewer rejected a second takeover offer from Carlsberg and Heineken last week, branding the 750p-a-share joint approach "wholly inadequate".
In a trading statement today S&N again defended its decision to reject Carlsberg and Heineken's advances and stressed it remained confident about its prospects going into 2008.
The Edinburgh-based company, whose brands include Fosters, Kronenbourg 1664 and John Smith's, also confirmed plans to achieve £20 million of cost savings across its UK operations.
Plans to save money include the possible closure of S&N's bottling plant at its Berkshire brewery, while the company has also decided to enter into a production and packaging agreement with Coors UK following a review of its supply chain.
Meanwhile the brewer revealed it had agreed to sell a large proportion of its French on-trade distribution business for £85 million.
Commenting on the group's prospects in light of the rejected Carlsberg and Heineken bid, S&N chief executive John Dunsmore said: "Let there be no doubt: for the team at S&N, shareholder value maximisation is paramount. Nothing is sacred.
"I passionately believe that Scottish & Newcastle will deliver value to its shareholders that vindicates our response to the consortium proposal," he stressed.
Looking ahead S&N said it expected to report improved trading in the company's core western European markets in 2008, after "unprecedented" bad weather hit the brewer's performance across the region during the third quarter of this year.
The group anticipates that Baltic Beverages Holdings (BBH), the joint venture in the Baltics which S&N runs with Carlsberg, will lead its performance next year.
Following the joint takeover bid made for S&N by Denmark's Carlsberg, the former has started arbitration proceedings aimed at forcing the latter to surrender its stake in BBH - which controls Russia's largest beer company.
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