Current Account hears that his brief reference a couple of weeks ago to Pernod Ricard possibly selling off BWG to part-fund a joint bid for Seagrams caused something of a kerfuffle.

That suggestion came from a Merrill Lynch report that suggested that Pernod might be a bit squeezed to fund its share of a possible Seagrams takeover without selling off some of its non-booze business.

Now it seems that Pernod is close to selling Orangina to Cadbury Schweppes for around $650 million, with industry sources believing that other asset sales, including BWG, may be in the pipeline.

Certainly it is difficult to see where BWG - despite its undoubted success - fits into the new Pernod Ricard, especially if Pernod's joint bid with Diageo for the Seagrams brands is successful.

Richard Burrows was careful in how he described BWG's likely future relationship with Pernod Ricard, but he did state that BWG was "non-core".

Reading between the lines suggests that BWG is likely to be divested by the French group. The question then is who would buy it and how much would it cost?

Putting a price on BWG is difficult, as Irish Distillers never broke BWG's contribution out of its own profit and loss account. BWG, which is thought to have sales of around £500 million in a full year, had operating profits of £15.3 million in the half-year to the end of June - up almost 35 per cent on the same period last year.

But most of that operating profit growth came from a series of acquisitions in the UK, with internal growth amounting only to 3 per cent. Whether that indicates BWG's Mace franchise in Leinster and the North and the Spar franchise in the Republic and parts of southern England have reached a certain maturity is open to debate. BWG also has its own centralised distribution business.

There is no question that BWG - either as a single unit or broken up between its distribution, Spar and Mace businesses - would represent an attractive entry into the booming Irish convenience store business.