Billionaire 'to seal whisky deal'

Mr Mallya's United Breweries Group is expected to confirm the purchase

An Indian billionaire is set to complete a deal to buy the Scottish whisky distiller Whyte & Mackay. Read original article

• UB Group
• Whyte & Mackay
  
• Hindustan Times

Vijay Mallya, head of the spirits giant United Breweries, will pay about £600m for the company.

The firm's current owner, Vivian Immerman, said he was hopeful that the sale would be completed on Wednesday.

Mr Immerman and his brother-in-law, Robert Tchenguiz, took over full control of Glasgow-based Whyte & Mackay two years ago.

Mr Immerman had been part of a group of investors who paid £208m for the company in 2001.

Scotch whisky can only be made in Scotland Vivian Immerman Current owner

He said he was selling the company because it would be "very difficult" for him to take it to the next level.

Mr Immerman told BBC Scotland that the only opportunities for further acquisitions were either in family hands or "extremely expensive".

"It needed a parent that had international distribition and could take the business to the next stage, and I wasn't capable of doing that without such a platform," he said.

"Vijay will bring the international distribution, expecially in the emerging markets where Scotch has exponential growth which has not been seen over the last several decades, and that is vital for this business."

Spirits market

He said all the existing staff would be transferring over to the new owner and dismissed suggestions that any of the company's brands could be distilled in India.

"Scotch whisky can only be made in Scotland," he stressed.

UB Group dominates the Indian spirits market, which is the world's largest for whisky.

But Scotch whisky only makes up about 1% of the Indian market, as a result of tariffs imposed by the country's national and state governments.

Woman admits £1.8m benefit scam

A woman has admitted engineering a benefit scam worth £1.8m.

Jean Hutchinson, 65, stole the identities of UK emigrants and had payments sent to addresses in London, Hertfordshire and Hampshire. Read original article

Police found thousands of documents used in the fraud in a secret office at her flat in Maida Vale, west London.

Hutchinson admitted, at Blackfriars Crown Court, to conspiring with associate Ralph Dale, 63, of Halifax, West Yorks, to defraud the government.

'200 identities'

The court heard she scoured newspapers for stories of people who had left Britain for a new life abroad.

She stole the identities of nearly 200 emigrants they felt were unlikely to return home and claim benefits.

The secret office, at the Shirland Road flat, was hidden behind a rack of clothes. Documents were filed under the different identities used to cheat the taxpayer.

Over a 10-year period, from 1996, Hutchinson targeted a range of state handouts, included housing, incapacity and council tax benefits, state pensions, disability allowance and income support.

Payments were sent to eight addresses in London, Watford in Hertfordshire and on the Isle of Wight, the court heard.

Hutchinson initially denied the charges and two trials collapsed because of administrative problems.

But she changed her plea just before the third trial was due to begin.

She admitted one count of conspiring to defraud the Department of Work and Pensions along with several local authorities.

She and Dale, of Sunnybank, will be sentenced in June.