Electra backs £141m BWG buyout

ELECTRA Partners Europe is to back the $222m (£141m) management buyout of wholesale distribution company BWG Group from French spirits giant Pernod Ricard.

As revealed in Business Day this week, the venture capital group will take a majority stake in BWG, best known in Britain for its Bargain Booze off-licences chain and Spar convenience stores in London, the South and South-West of England.

BWG provides goods and services to the retail grocery and catering trades in Ireland. In Northern Ireland it owns the Mace chain.

BWG was one of a clutch of businesses Pernod Ricard decided was no longer core after it teamed up with Diageo to buy the Seagram drinks business in a £5.6 billion carve-up last year.

The French inherited BWG following the 1988 takeover of Irish Distillers, which originally bought the wholesale operation in 1984 to gain some control over the black market trade in spirits.

In recent months Pernod Ricard has sold a host of divisions and brands.