Australia's Lion Little World Beverages to take over by the end of the year. Over 300 employees will get $100,000 pay outs.
In another major blow to the Colorado beer industry in the last two months, New Belgium Brewing on Tuesday announced that after nearly 30 years in the craft beer business, the employee-owned company is selling to Australian-based Lion Little World Beverages, a subsidiary of Japanese company Kirin Holdings Company Limited.
More than 300 of New Belgium’s employee-owners will receive more than $100,000 in retirement money through the deal, “with some receiving significantly greater amounts,” New Belgium founder Kim Jordan wrote in a letter on Tuesday.
“We will no longer be employee owned and it would be easy to see that as a drawback,” Jordan wrote in her letter. “But here’s another way to look at it … Over the life of our (employee stock ownership plan), including this transaction, the total amount paid to current and former employees will be nearly $190 million. We will have helped a significant number of people realize the upside of having equity in something, being a part of the American Dream!”
https://www.denverpost.com/2019/11/19/new-belgium-brewing-sale-kirin/
