There is a piece in today's FT about the pubco M&B raising a large chunk of money, presumably to see it through the ongoing shut-down of the hospitality sector.
Nothing wrong with that, but one goes on to read that that largest shareholders seem to have made most of their money from betting shops and currency speculation. Shareholders who seem to live in Barbabos, well away from the beady eyes of taxmen and regulators. The large chunk of money looks likely to arrive with M&B by selling new shares to these shareholders, who have created a special, Barbados registered entity to hold their end of this transaction. An entity which has signalled that it wants to cut the board down to size and to cut down the amount of time spent on public company matters. Which presumably means boring stuff like filing accounts, talking to said taxmen and regulators.
To think that the Tories smashed up the brewers' monopoly of public houses and their chains of tied houses, to have them fall into the laps of people like this. People who didn't even go to Oxford, let alone Eton.
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