Have Carlsberg and Heineken just abandoned their attempt to wrestle control of Scottish & Newcastle bid?
Shares in the UK brewer suddenly plunged 8% just before 8.30am, shedding 60p down to 675p, at a time when the FTSE 100 was soaring.
At yesterday's closing price of 745p, S&N shares were already some distance from the 800p that its board had held out for.
Carlsberg and Heineken had until midday to launch a bid. Some reports in this morning's papers claimed that S&N would support an 800p offer, valuing it at £7.8bn.
There's no official word that the bid has been abandoned. But the sudden drop in its share price suggests that someone out there knows something. As I write, the shares are fluctuating between 3% and 4% lower - so this could be quite a morning!
