The company behind Irn-Bru - dubbed Scotland's other national drink - today confirmed talks over a possible £1.4 billion merger with Tango maker Britvic.
AG Barr, which dates back to 1875 and also makes Tizer and Rubicon, said the discussions were at an early stage after it approached its Essex-based rival Britvic about a potential tie-up.
The pair said a merger deal would create one of the leading soft drinks companies in Europe, with other brands including the Britvic products Robinsons, J2O and Fruit Shoot.
It has already been agreed that Britvic shareholders will own 63% of any new company. Shares in both companies fizzed today, with Britvic worth £890 million after a 12% rise and AG Barr up 4%, valuing it at £500 million.
Barr, which is based at Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, has produced Irn-Bru from a secret recipe for more than 130 years.
It employs about 950 people across the UK, including 500 in Scotland, the vast majority in Cumbernauld.
Chairmanship of the company passed outside the family for the first time in 2009 when Robin Barr ended his 31-year tenure as chairman. He remains on the company's board as a non-executive director and is one of just three people to know the formula of 32 ingredients used in the drink.
The business started in 1875 when Mr Barr's great-grandfather Robert Barr embarked on a new direction for the family cork-cutting business by producing and selling "aerated waters", as soft drinks were called at the time.
Andrew G Barr first began selling "Iron Brew" in 1901 and shrewd marketing quickly saw the company rise to become Scotland's top soft drinks seller.
When Robert Barr took over the firm in 1947, he renamed the drink Irn-Bru after worries about new food labelling regulations - the drink did contain iron but was not brewed.
The current business has won praise from City analysts for its performance after increasing sales of Irn-Bru away from its historical heartland.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article