Wally, the liquor industry rumors you mentioned regarding the sell off of the Thebarton site have been around since 1993 when Lion Nathan had settled into their new business aquisition. I was an long time SA Brewing production employee at the time and took the last of the redundancy packages offered. Since then a large slab of the site has been sold and developed along the southern boundary, formerly the employee capr park for the 700 odd previous employees and the old Adelaide Botltle Company yard. As for the latest litigation regarding first right of share purchase before the courts - you need think back to the owner of the old 'pick axe' brand bottle and who actually owned the Adelaide bottle company - that was part of the SA Brerwing site. I believe there were 3 owners, The SA Bottle Company, Coopers Brewery, and SA Brewing(now Lion Nathan). From memory, when the Adelaide Bottle Company was wound up, it involved a complicated allotment of ownership shares with sticky strings attached for all 3 parties. Watch the coming court ruling, it should be very interesting.
As for a take over of Coopers - you have to remember that its a private company and the shares are not listed for trading on any exchange, or governed by hostile ASX aquisition rules, so there's not a lot the predator can do other than make an offer and hope the target accepts.
Interesting times. Coopers could come out of this a private national icon and not just a perocial SA icon.