{"id":693966,"date":"2026-07-16T01:21:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T01:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/693966\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T01:21:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T01:21:19","slug":"brewdog-co-founder-james-watt-launches-bid-to-buy-back-beer-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/693966\/","title":{"rendered":"Brewdog co-founder James Watt launches bid to buy back beer firm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Watt recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cze00ddyw27o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">apologised to staff and investors<\/a> for the &#8220;many mistakes&#8221; made in the management of the company, admitting that it tried to diversify too quickly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Brewdog&#8217;s brash marketing style had regularly sparked controversy, but the firm also faced criticism for its treatment of investors and staff. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A 2022 a BBC Disclosure investigation uncovered claims of inappropriate behaviour by Watt towards female staff, and revealed that Brewdog violated import laws and fabricated many of its marketing stories.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In 2024, the firm <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-scotland-67932569\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">faced a backlash<\/a> after revealing it would no longer hire new staff on the real living wage, instead paying the lower legal minimum wage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Watt denied any wrongdoing alleged in the film and threatened to sue the BBC. He later said he sometimes missed social cues because he has autism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A complaint to broadcasting regulator Ofcom was rejected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Brewdog said it was putting in a range of measures to improve workplace culture following the release of the programme. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tilray and Second Best have been asked to comment on Watt&#8217;s letter. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watt recently apologised to staff and investors for the &#8220;many mistakes&#8221; made in the management of the company,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-693966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}