Carlsberg has said it "had not fallen out" with Scottish & Newcastle over the way it handled its joint takeover bid for S&N.

The Danish brewer confirmed today (25 January) that it has teamed up with Heineken to make a recommended offer for S&N of GBP8.00 per share. S&N's board finally agreed to discuss a takeover bid from the two companies last week, having snubbed three previous proposed offers, and last year labelled Carlsberg "pathetic, desparate men clutching at straws".

Speaking in London today, Carlsberg's CEO, Jørgen Buhl Rasmussen, said that the perceived animosity between S&N and Carlsberg had not been as pronounced as reports throughout the process had suggested.

"To be honest, I don't know if we have fallen out with Scottish & Newcastle," Rasmussen said. "I would say that the last few days have been a very pleasant experience. We've been getting very strong cooperation from the whole team (at S&N) - I even had a very nice beer with (S&N's CEO) John Dunsmore the other night.

"When we started this process, we clearly had our strategy in place," he continued. "When you go through this process, there's always going to be a lot of negotiations. That has been the case throughout this process. We've never changed the way we thought about our strategy - this kind of deal was right on track for us all along.

"We have now created the fastest growing brewer in the world," Rasmussen concluded. "That will be the case going forward, and that's a significant transformation."