Jonathan Bryan Guinness, 3rd Lord Moyne, has acquired the majority of the votes in the listed Finnish multi-branch firm Amer Group Ltd. Lord Moyne is a member of the Irish brewing family Guinness. Amer mainly concentrates on the tobacco and sport goods sectors, and it owns brands such as Wilson and Atomic. Last year it had a turnover of around 1 billion US$ but made an loss of around 80 million US$.
Amer has two share classes, K shares with voting power and A shares with significantly less voting power. Before the acquisition, some 90 per cent of the votes in Amer were held by four organisations mainly representing past and present students of the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration and the Helsinki University of Technology. After the acquisition, their share of the votes will drop to around seven per cent. The selling price was around 60 million US$.
Lord Moyne will, as a result of the acquisition, have around 58 per cent of the votes and five per cent of the shares in Amer. According to Lord Moyne, Amer will in the future concentrate on developing and strengthening its brands, especially Wilson.
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6 June 1997