The omnishambles of BrewDog’s sale to Tilray Brands has somehow trumped even the bullying, transphobia, sexism and greenwashing that marked its descent. And once again, it seems the people at the bottom of the food chain will be the ones paying for the actions of those at the top.
As part of the announcement that BrewDog had been sold to US company Tilray Brands in a cut-price £33m deal, attention has been focused on the plight of the brand’s 220,000 ‘equity punk’ investors and the fact they would not see a penny. But what about the 484 people who’ve lost their jobs following the closure of 38 of its UK bars?
According to reports, the BrewDog employees were given just 25 minutes’ notice of the conference call on Monday in which they were informed they’d been made redundant with immediate effect. In another masterclass from the How Not to Treat People handbook, there was no chance for the shellshocked employees to ask any questions. Questions, presumably, like: “How am I going to pay my rent/feed my kids now?”
Corporate greed
The whole debacle smacks of corporate greed, mismanagement and heartlessness. Workplace investigator and mediator Hand & Heart says it’s been investigating and reporting on corporate governance failures at BrewDog since 2022.
“Over that period, concerns have been raised – by us and by others – with BrewDog’s board, auditors, investors, Companies House, HMRC and more,” it says. “These concerns covered alleged financial irregularities, connected-party transactions, whistleblower retaliation, data protection breaches and failures of board oversight. The responses from regulatory bodies were, in the main, inadequate. The workers paying the price today deserved better.”
There will be those who say this is just what happens in pre-pack administration sales. That may be true, but would those people find it so easy to say so if they were the ones who’d just lost their job with 25 minutes’ notice?
“Hundreds of employees set to lose their jobs” headlines are horribly frequent in fmcg right now. It can be easy to become inured to them. It’s worth pausing sometimes to remember that each is a real person, many of them not particularly well paid and already facing real financial struggles – which just got a lot worse.
Unite union’s national lead for hospitality Bryan Simpson has likened BrewDog’s actions to the infamous P&O affair from 2022 – previously the high water mark for treating employees with disdain.
“The way in which [BrewDog’s] senior management have conducted themselves throughout this sales process has been nothing short of a national disgrace – with workers being given no information about the company’s plans or their futures. [It] has echoes of P&O and is deplorable,” Simpson said.
While Unite isn’t exactly a stranger to disseminating hyperbole, Francesca Wild, senior associate solicitor at Morr & Co LLP, agrees.
“The BrewDog-Tilray deal highlights how dramatically a business transition can impact employees,” she says. “Parallels with the P&O Ferries mass redundancies in 2022, where 786 workers were dismissed without consultation and the company later admitted it had intentionally avoided the required processes, are likely unwelcome but unsurprising.”
Platitudes from a penthouse
Then, just when it seemed the stench from BrewDog’s latest mess couldn’t get any worse, in rides James Watt, the world’s most disingenuous cowboy, to not so much save the day as offer platitudes from a penthouse.
“I am heartbroken for all of the hard-working and passionate team members who have lost their jobs,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “I would have loved to save every single job and every single equity punk investment. Ultimately, I couldn’t. That will stay with me. To our team members leaving this week: thank you. You helped build something that mattered. I am sorry we could not protect you.”
To recap, this is the same James Watt who trousered £50m (as did his co-founder Martin Dickie) when selling 22% of BrewDog to the private equity group TSG in 2017. That’s £50m – more than the business was eventually sold for. Now, 500 hardworking staff are out of a job, and a lot of the blame for the relatively paltry £33m final price must be laid at Watt’s door, not only due to the hubristic overexpansion and diversification (which he admitted to this week) but in terms of his unacknowledged contribution to the terrible press resulting from his personal treatment of colleagues.
So, what comes next for the newly unemployed BrewDog workers? The harrowing slog of finding work in a job market where there are currently 2.6 unemployed people per vacancy and some apply for thousands of jobs without success.
Sobering reality
This is serious. Long-term unemployment increases suicide risk by around 2.6 times, according to research based on ONS data, while The Samaritans has repeatedly highlighted unemployment as one of the strongest risk factors for suicide.
It’s a sobering reality for all of us, but especially those directly affected by the ‘shock job loss’ headlines.
A spokesperson for joint administrators AlixPartners said: “We appreciate this is an extremely challenging time for those involved. We are in direct contact with all those affected by the closures and are providing specialist outside support such that people can claim their statutory entitlements as quickly as possible.”
It also revealed that it was in discussion with “several of the UK’s leading hospitality providers” about vacancies elsewhere in the industry and will be helping former BrewDog employees find new employment.
A source told The Grocer AlixPartners is working with parties including Pizza Express, Zizzi, TGI Fridays and the Stonegate pub group, all of which have flagged vacancies and opportunities.
That is, of course, a modicum of good news. But it feels rather unfair that when BrewDog makes another mess, the rest of the industry is left to follow behind with the pooper scooper.
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