Dusanj brothers bid to buy back Cains

The former owners of Liverpool brewers Cains Beer Company are understood to have tabled a bid to buy the business out of administration.

Ajmail and Sudarghara Dusanj bought Cains in 2002, but administrators were called in last month after their bankers withdrew support.

According to reports they have now submitted a bid to the administrator, PricewaterhouseCoopers, but they face competition from the Glasgow-based management and investment group Marketing Management Services International (MMSI), which owns a micro-brewery on the Isle of Arran.

Cains operates a chain of around 100 pubs which includes 26 freehold and 76 leasehold. The listed company was created last year by the £37m reverse takeover of Preston-based Honeycombe Leisure plc by Robert Cain & Co.

The deal saddled the group with large interest payments and it reported pre-tax losses of £4.6m in the six months to April.

Cains was the subject of a winding-up petition from HM Revenue & Customs over an unpaid tax bill. It went into administration after its bankers, Halifax Bank of Scotland, refused to back its plans to turn the business around.

The Dusanj brothers still own the Toxteth brewery and some pubs, which are held by a separate family company and have been rented to Cains.