00:00Bloomberg senior deals reporter Michelle Davis joins us to discuss. Michelle, what fell apart here? What went wrong?
00:05I mean, as you said, it was a bit of a surprise and kind of abrupt because as of a
00:09week ago,
00:10we were hearing that the two were still hot and heavy and with, you know, the Kentucky Derby coming up,
00:14it seemed like the perfect timing for them to announce something.
00:16Ultimately, they were controlling shareholders on both sides of this deal.
00:20Whenever there's controlling shareholders involved, deals are tough.
00:23When there's two involved, it makes it even tougher.
00:25And we heard that they just couldn't come to, as they both said, mutually acceptable or agreeable terms.
00:30to get this deal across the line.
00:31The Sazerac question is a big open question because obviously they have expressed their interest in Brown-Forman.
00:38At this time, sources are telling me that they're not in active talks.
00:41We'll see if that changes down the road.
00:43The other big question mark is whether down the road Pernod and Brown-Forman decide to resume talks
00:48because the way they both put out their statements, they kind of left the door open for something to happen
00:52down the road.
00:53So we will see.
00:55I mean, this would be different, though.
00:56It's a private company that would be taking them over, not a publicly traded one.
01:00Exactly.
01:00But Sazerac also could have its own challenges.
01:04Analysts have pointed out that there's a bit more overlap between Sazerac and Brown-Forman
01:08than Pernod and Brown-Forman, primarily because it's two American companies
01:12that would be a major player in American whiskey.
01:16But the Sazerac offer does contemplate for Sazerac maybe having a bigger role in the future of the company
01:21than what would have been contemplated under a Brown-Forman Pernod deal.
01:25And so it's unclear if Brown-Forman is actually open to that.
01:29We did hear that they were favoring a Pernod deal.
01:31So the jury's out.
Comments