Bass rescues Mean Fiddler reverse takeover

The entertainment group Mean Fiddler will list on the stock market at the end of October, after Bass Brewers rescued a reverse takeover that collapsed two months ago.

Bass Brewers, which has sponsored Mean Fiddler's Reading music festival for the past three years, yesterday bought nearly 9 per cent of the group's AIM-listed subsidiary Meanfiddler.com for £5m.

Vince Power, Mean Fiddler's executive chairman, intends to reverse the private Mean Fiddler into Meanfiddler.com, creating Mean Fiddler Music Group. The deal with Bass, which is being broken up and sold by its owner Interbrew, will give it the financial clout expanding into Europe, starting with its Jazz Café brand.

Meanfiddler.com, which was spun off Mean Fiddler at the height of the dot.com boom to exploit the potential of online web casting, abandoned its £33.5m reverse takeover of its parent in August after a share issue failed to raise the minimum £5m required.

Stuart Cain, head of sponsorship at Bass Brewers, said: "It's got some cracking venues in the West End, like the Astoria, which are just right for brands like Carling and Grolsch."

Shares in Meanfiddler.com rose 0.25p to 0.75p.