The news that Dutch brewing giant Heineken could drastically increase its presence in the UK pub sector by buying up Punch Taverns is heavily covered in this morning’s papers.

Heineken is set to agree an audacious deal to expand its British pub business after teaming up with a private equity firm to launch a joint bid for Punch Taverns worth almost £1.6bn, writes The Times (£). It suggests a recommended offer could come this week. However, Punch said that it had received a higher cash bid from Emerald Investment Partners of 185p a share.

Under the terms of the proposal, Heineken would buy a portfolio of about 1,900 pubs from Patron immediately on completion of the deal, leaving Patron with about 1,300 (The Guardian). Heineken, the UK’s largest brewer by volume with 25% of the market, already owns 1,000 pubs through its Galaxy Estate (The Financial Times £). If successful, the deal would see Heineken own one in ten pubs in the UK (The Telegraph).

Punch was highly leveraged with debt in the early 2000s as it sought rapid expansion of its pubs, a situation that left it heavily exposed when the smoking ban, beer duties and the global downturn hit the industry. (The Daily Mail)

Separately, the FT looks at Heineken’s prospects in the cider sector. It writes that Heineken is so confident about cider’s prospects that it uses the term “strategic pillar” to describe the drink’s role in the company’s future. True, group cider sales are a drop in the ocean compared with sales of beer, but Heineken grasped the potential for cider as a fashionable alcoholic drink after it acquired Scottish & Newcastle in 2008 and became the owners of Strongbow, the world’s top cider brand. (The Financial Times £)

Amazon has used a drone to deliver a bag of popcorn to an address in rural England, in the first commercial outing for a technology that is the US group’s boldest step towards automating deliveries. (The Financial Times £)

Argos delivery drivers have suspended plans for strike action after talks with the operator of the retailer’s main distribution centre. Unite, the union which is representing the drivers, said it had reached an agreement on Wednesday morning and hammered out a deal which it could recommend to its members (The Guardian). An Argos spokesman reassured customers that it was “business as usual this Christmas” (The BBC).

Online shoppers are projected to spend more than ever in 2016, with sales expected to surpass the £5.8bn spent online in December 2015, according to the British Retail Consortium. Online sales are not just for younger people, however, as a new report shows that British seniors are the most tech-savvy in Europe, with 78% of internet users aged 65 and over currently shopping online. (The Telegraph)

A post-Brexit UK-EU trade deal might take 10 years to finalise and still fail, Britain’s ambassador to the EU has privately told the government. The BBC says Sir Ivan Rogers warned ministers that the European consensus was that a deal might not be done until the early to mid-2020s. He also cautioned that an agreement could be rejected ultimately by other EU members’ national parliaments. (The BBC)

Britain’s unemployment rate remained at an 11-year low in the three months to October but employment fell as economists warned that resilience in the economy since the Brexit vote had begun to fade. (The Times £)

Shares in Metro jumped 5 per cent on Wednesday morning as the German retail conglomerate posted better than expected fourth-quarter results ahead of splitting itself in two next year. (The Financial Times £)

Steinhoff International, the South African furniture maker, and Shoprite, Africa’s biggest supermarket chain, are in talks to combine their African assets to create the continent’s largest retailer, in a deal brokered by South Africa’s richest man. (The Financial Times £)

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