Guinness selloff to net £396m
Published:
HALF of the world-famous home of Irish stout Guinness is to be sold off, with 250 jobs axed at two of its sister breweries under plans announced by owner Diageo yesterday.
It promised to keep Dublin’s iconic St James’s Gate site open to protect the heritage of its Guinness brand, which dates back to 1759, amid a major shake-up of Irish operations.
The drink giant is closing its breweries at Kilkenny and Dundalk at the cost of more than half of the 450 brewing staff it employs in the Emerald Isle.
A £515million investment package will consolidate works at St James’s Gate, where production will be cut by one-third. A new brewhouse in Dublin will supply one billion pints a year to the Irish and UK markets.
Production at Kilkenny and Dundalk will also be transferred to a new brewing centre of excellence planned for an unspecified location near Dublin in 2013. Diageo chief executive Paul Walsh said the plans were aimed at supporting the long-term of Guinness around the world.
Some £79.3million of the overall investment package will be poured into revamping the St James’s Gate site.
Surplus lands in Dublin, Dundalk and Kilkenny will be sold for about £396million. The Guinness Workers Union said it opposed compulsory redundancies and feared huge job cuts at all the sites.
