Constellation ups ante on bidding for Dunkin' Brands

Nation's Restaurant News, May 23, 2005

FAIRPORT, N.Y. -- Constellation Brands Inc., known as the world's largest winemaker, and three partners reportedly made a $14.38 billion "highly conditional" offer for the British owner of the Dunkin' Donuts, Baskin-Robbins and Togo's brands, marking a bidding war with French distiller Pernod Ricard SA.

Constellation, based here, is teaming with liquor maker Brown-Forman Corp. and buyout firms Blackstone Group LP and Lion Capital in the offer for spirits giant Allied Domecq PLC, owner of Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin' Brands, published reports said.

Pernod, which had offered $14.2 billion for Allied Domecq, had indicated that it planned to divest all three of its restaurant brands to a single buyer from among several unidentified suitors.

Dunkin' Brands had estimated annual corporate revenues of $170 million in 2003. Its three wholly franchised chains last year had systemwide sales exceeding $4 billion, with Dunkin' Donuts accounting for about $3.6 billion of that, according to other estimates.