Tag Archives: market

Labour’s closing down sale

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In a fire sale in a buyer’s market, the UK’s Labour Government Continue reading →

Chivas Brothers cut whisky production as Diageo dumps 700 in Kilmarnock

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This is a tale of two big – the biggest, but very different – Scotch whisky producers. Continue reading →

Scotch Whisky Association considering appeal after losing case against Glen Breton

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Glen Breton, a Canadian distiller from Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, has won its case against the Scotch Whisky Association‘s (SWA) challenge to its use of the word ‘Glen’ in its branding.

The argument is that this confuses the market because glens are inextricably associated with Scotland and that buyers will therefore assume that Glen Breton is Scotch.

The SWA is now reviewing the case in prospect of an appeal to the Canadian Supreme Court. It all began with Glenora‘s application for a trademark in 2000, followed by the SWA filing a complaint with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office in 2003.

Cape Breton is brewed at the Glenora Distillery in Glenville, beside the Glenora Falls, neighbour to Glen Dea and in Inverness County. These were factors in the judgement in their favour.

Oddly, the court that has just ruled in Cape Breton’s favour did confirm that the Glen Breton trademark had indeed confused the market. This may well feature in any appeal.

The SWA has six days in which to ask for permission to appeal. The Supreme Court could take up to six months to decide whether to hear the appeal. It would then be a further two years before a panel of judges would give their verdict.

It would drive you to drink. And the origin of Argyll’s Islay malts is pretty safe – not a ‘Glen’ amongst them.

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The Bank – gone

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The current crisis in the banking market, described as as ‘adjustment’ in the industry, now embraces the end of the Bank of Scotland. Its earlier merger with the Halifax Building Society to form the HBOS bank had already weakened its local brand and distanced it from its origins, with its name, even in initials, taking second billing. Now, with the weakened HBOS to be taken over by Lloyds TSB, the name proposed for the huge new bank is Lloyds Halifax.

Rationalising the banking presence of two such organisations will inevitably mean branch closures and job losses. Industry analysts are indicating job losses of around 40,000, with several of its 1,100 branches threatened with closures. Lloyds estimate that this will generate annual cost savings of £1billion.

As a dispersed rural area with few places having both Lloyds TSB and HBOS branches, Argyll is unlikely to be significantly affected by the loss of local branches or jobs. But this is a stressful time for staff.

Lloyds have made a commitment to continue to use HBOS’s headquarters at The Mound in Edinburgh and to work to maintain jobs there. This should not be read as meanign that the HQ of the new superbank will be in Scotland. The top jobs of Chair and CEO are to be filled from Lloyds TSB.

The deal has to be agreed by investors, although in the current circumstances it is hard to imagine that investors would not take what they could. HBOS shareholders will receive 0.83 Lloyds shares for every HBOS share. This values their shares at around 25% of what they were a year ago.

Since the new bank will have up to 40% of the UK mortgage market, the takeover will be referred to the Competition Commission but, with the Government itself involved in the rescue, it is unlikely to object. Economists see the move as a necessary rescue to shore up public trust in the banking system at a critical time but are divided in their views of its longer term wisdom.

Lloyds say that the takeover  – at a rock bottom ‘fire sale’ price of £12.2 billion – is part of its strategy to create ‘the UK’s leading finance company’. It also says that it intends to increase the number of competitive mortgages on offer for first-time home buyers. While this will be reassuring for the property market as a whole and for first-time buyers, its ebullience in a crisis caused by over-exposure to mortgage debt suggests that the big lessons may not yet have been fully learned.