Brewdog leaves £20m in unpaid bills to UK businesses

Scottish beer giant Brewdog has left £20m in unpaid bills to hundreds of UK businesses following its collapse last month.

These range from coffee shops, bakeries and laundry services, to lawyers, councils and holiday parks.

A report by administrators Alixpartners revealed almost 500 firms are owed money by Brewdog - including West Ham United, Lord's Cricket Ground and Manchester University.

The Aberdeenshire-based brewer had more than £500m of debts when it was sold in March to US drinks firm Tilray in a £33m deal.

Administrators detailed the extent of Brewdog's debts to small businesses and larger suppliers.

Most are based in the UK, with many near the firm's base in the north of east Scotland. Others are abroad.

Aberdeenshire coffee roaster Coffee Apothecary is owed £8,000, Edinburgh caterer A Crolla & Son is owed £7,000 and Edinburgh laundry firm Suds R Us has a £900 bill.

UK holiday resort firm Centre Parcs is also owed £7,000.

Marylebone Cricket Club, which owns Lord's Cricket Ground, is owed £420,000.

Brewdog had sold 750,000 pints a year at the London stadium before the club ended their partnership last month.

West Ham United football club is owed £7,000 while the University of Manchester has a £14,000 unpaid bill.

Aberdeen City Council is owed £11,400 and North Lanarkshire Council £87,000.

Aberdeenshire Council, the location of Brewdog's Ellon headquarters, is owed £238,000. Dozens of businesses in the local area have also been affected.

These include local printer Langstane Press, transport provider RS Taxis and the Ythan Bakery in Ellon.

Major drinks firms including Heineken, Coors, Tennent Caledonian make the list alongside smaller independent breweries that have collaborated with Brewdog in the past.

These include Manchester's Cloudwater Brew Co, Edinburgh's Vault City Brewing and smaller producers Donzoko and Buxton Brewery.

The biggest bills in the report are from Ardagh Metal Packaging (£3m), ARR Craib Transport (£1.6m) and Ball Beverage Packaging (£1.2m).

Rock Soup Media, Design My Night, GigPig and several other event and marketing firms are also owed money.

Alixpartners also confirmed that investors in Brewdog's Equity for Punks scheme would get no return on their shares.

The firm launched the Equity for Punks crowdfunding scheme in 2009.

About 200,000 people put in money for a stake in the company, discounts and perks.

Investors typically spent about £500 on shares, although others invested much larger sums.

Concerns had been raised about what might happen to the company's small investors in the event of a sale.

The administrators' report stated these shares now had "no value".

Brewdog's biggest debt is to financial services group HSBC, which is owed more than £61m across various banking arms.

As the senior secured creditor, the bank is expected to be repaid much of this debt - but Alixpartners warned that it would still face a "material shortfall".

Major Brewdog backer TSG Consumer Partners - a US private‑equity group - is owed £27.6m, but it is not expected to get any money back.

Other unsecured creditors will see returns of less than 1p in the pound on nearly £190m of debt.

HM Revenue & Customs is expected to be paid back in full for more than £4m owed.

Last month 440 staff were made redundant and 736 employees transferred to Tilray, after the US firm bought Brewdog's brand and UK operation.

Eleven bars were retained as part of the sale while 38 other pubs closed immediately.

Tilray, which also produced medical cannabis, announced this week that it was aiming to to return Brewdog to its previous valuation of more than $1bn.

Chairman Irwin D Simon said: "Our priorities are clear - strengthen Brewdog, accelerate innovation, and scale our global beverage platform.

"We are already taking decisive steps to reinvest in the Brewdog brand, innovation pipeline, and brewpub experience."

Brewdog, which was founded in 2007 by friends James Watt and Martin Dickie, had four breweries and about 100 pubs across the world at its peak.

Watt said he was "heartbroken" after the collapse and apologised to staff and investors.