Grand Metropolitan
Grand Met started out as a hotel business becoming Grand Metropolitan Hotels Ltd in 1962.
It moved into industrial catering by the acquisition of Express Dairies and Berni Inns.
1970 To this was added Mecca
Acquired brewery company Truman, Hanbury, Buxton and Co
1972 Acquired Watney Mann becoming Grand Metropolitan Ltd. and International Distillers and Vintners which owned the brands Smirnoff Vodka, J. and B. Whisky, Bailey's Irish Cream, Gilbey's Gin, Piat Wine and Croft Sherry and port.
In the 1980s Grand Met took over the US Liggett Group (producers of wines and spirits), Warner Holidays, Inter-Continental Hotels Corporation, Heublein Inc (wines and spirits) and companies in the United States.
1982 Death of Sir Maxwell Joseph
1984 Its contract catering businesses, Grand Metropolitan Catering Services, were renamed Compass Services[1]
1987 Management buy-out of Compass Services (the largest MBO in Britain up to that time)
1988-90 Disposed of a number of businesses acquired in the previous two decades, most notably Inter-Continental Hotels and Mecca.
1988 Acquired US Pillsbury Co[2]
1989 Acquired Wimpy.
1990 Deal with Dalgety to exchange certain brands: acquired Memory Lane Cakes, making Grand Metropolitan's cakes business one of the largest in Europe, in exchange for Greens baking mixes, and Hammonds sauces, which Grand Met acquired with Pillsbury[3]
1991 After reference to the MMC, a "pubs-for-breweries" deal with Foster IXL was agreed; Grand Met would transfer its breweries to Courage; 7,000 pubs owned by the two groups would be put into a joint venture company Inntrepreneur Estates; Courage would be able to supply the pub chain under the deal for 7 years; Grand Met retained 1750 pubs on its own account; a further 2797 pubs would be sold by Courage and Grand Met. In a separate deal, Grand Met would sell 115 Berni Inns and 35 managed public houses to Whitbread; Grand Met kept 58 Berni Inns which could continue to trade under that name for one year.[4][5]
1997 merger of Guinness and Co and Grand Metropolitan to create Diageo. The product portfolios of Guinness and Grand Met were largely complementary, with little overlap.
See Also
Sources of Information
- [1] Wikipedia