S&N's Froggatt may jump at Carlsberg before he hops off

"Over the years, we've seen good and bad weather and never really commented on it, but this is the giddy limit, mate, and I'm off." That's not exactly how Tony Froggatt put it following his nearly-a-profit warning with the half-time results from Scottish & Newcastle, but his comments have triggered bar-room gossip that he'll call time after completing five years as chief executive in May.

Every chief executive needs a slice of luck. Froggatt's was to arrive when the share price was suffering one of its periodic hangovers, so the subsequent recovery makes his four years look a triumph. The longer-term record, though, betrays that Britain's biggest brewer is more pale ale than Newcastle Brown.

Despite claims that everything is going well, or at least as well as expected, there are persistent rumours of dissent among its lopsided board. This is a company that still collects nonexecutive directors like trophies, and currently has nine of them in its cabinet.

This is too many to agree on anything except lunch, and they far outnumber the executives five, including the company secretary.

S&N has brands like John Smith's and Foster's, but it has never recovered from breaking the first rule of foreign investing: never buy a business in France.

A recent survey from an international consultancy fingered the country as the worst in the developed world for foreign businessmen to trade in, something Sir Brian Pitman noted years ago at Lloyds Bank when he said: "You can't fire people there, and if you do, you have to go on paying them." S&N owns Kronenbourg 1664, but as one barfly put it this week: "The French only drink beer for three months of the year, and this year it rained for two of them." S&N might actually be losing money there quite a feat for the market leader, especially for a business that looked wildly expensive when the company bought it. The best that chairman Sir Brian Stewart can find to say is that "we are addressing our challenges in France".

S&N won't say whether Froggatt will be addressing these challenges after next May, although when an Aussie complains about the rain, you can tell he's thinking about home.

There's quite a challenge in Britain, too, as S&N has poured so much into discounted Bulmers cider that the rival maker of Magners has been pushed into making two profit warnings, and yesterday slashed its expansion plans, blaming falling demand. If Paul Walsh of Diageo is right, and cider on the rocks is just a passing fashion, then S&N's market share will have been dearly bought.

Stewart and Froggatt would rather we looked eastward where, lo, the land is bright. BBH is sending beer down millions more Russian throats. Unfortunately, S&N has only half this business, with the rest owned by Carlsberg, whose new deputy chief executive blurted out how he'd like to buy S&N, before signalling that he'd been talked out of it.

Froggatt would surely welcome a handsome offer from Carlsberg, and if he does intend to hop off, it had better arrive before a new chief executive is in place.

If his luck holds, the Danes will rush in, but elsewhere in the North-East, it seems to be running out. After Northern Rock and Sports Direct, will Scottish & Newcastle show that bad things happen in threes?