SCOTTISH & Newcastle has agreed a £7.8 billion takeover offer from rivals Heineken and Carlsberg.
The European suitors, who have been pursuing Edinburgh-based S&N since October, plan to carve up the business when the deal is completed.
The move is set to call time on more than 250 years for the brewer, which also makes Kronenbourg 1664 and Newcastle Brown Ale.
The group currently has about 3,300 staff in the UK, with breweries in Manchester, Reading, Dunston near Newcastle, and Tadcaster, in North Yorkshire.
The company also owns the Bulmers cider mill in Hereford and has administrative staff in Edinburgh and Staines, Middlesex.
S&N, which also makes John Smith's, has grown to become the world's seventh largest brewer by sales volume since the original William Younger brewery was established in Leith, Edinburgh back in 1749.
William Younger merged with fellow Edinburgh brewer William McEwan to form Scottish Brewers in 1913, before merging with Newcastle Breweries in 1960 to become Scottish & Newcastle.
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