Black Sheep Brewery would have ceased to exist if a controversial sale of the business which left shareholders empty-handed and is due to cost creditors and taxpayers millions had not gone through, the firm's new boss has told The Yorkshire Post.
Mark Williams, CEO of Keystone Brewing Group, said that while he was "sympathetic" to shareholders and creditors who have lost money as a result of the pre-pack administration deal which took the Masham-based brewer into private ownership last year, it was the only option on the table to save the business.
He said: "At the time the only other outcome was to close the business."
Buy the Yorkshire Post this Saturday to read the exclusive interview with Mr Williams.
Mark Williams, CEO of Keystone Brewing Group, said that while he was "sympathetic" to shareholders and creditors who have lost money as a result of the pre-pack administration deal which took the Masham-based brewer into private ownership last year, it was the only option on the table to save the business.
He said: "At the time the only other outcome was to close the business."
Buy the Yorkshire Post this Saturday to read the exclusive interview with Mr Williams.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hi, Chris Byrne here, Yorkshire Post Business and Features Editor. I'm here at Black Sheep
00:07 Brewery in beautiful North Yorkshire where I've just been talking to the new CEO of a
00:14 group of companies called Keystone Brewing who have taken over Black Sheep. For those
00:20 who aren't aware, last year Black Sheep went into a pre-pack administration deal and was
00:26 bought out of that by a firm called Breel Capital. Breel's gone on to take over a number
00:32 of other breweries across the country with Black Sheep as effectively its first anchor
00:37 tenant and the hope is that this brewing group can ultimately be worth £100 million in revenue
00:45 by 2028 with further acquisitions on the cards. Now when Black Sheep went into administration
00:51 there was a bit of controversy around it, shareholders lost out, lost everything they
00:57 had and the tax man and creditors lost out too. Mark Williams says that the state of
01:03 the business was such that it was either their deal or essentially the business would have
01:10 gone out of existence and that this was the best outcome. The hope is that Black Sheep
01:15 is going to have a much brighter future ahead.
01:18 [BLANK_AUDIO]