Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, the world’s largest brewer, yesterday launched an improved offer for SABMiller PLC, offering just over ￡68 billion (US$104 billion) for its largest rival to extend its reach into Africa and other markets.
The company said in a statement it was offering ￡42.15 per SABMiller share, having already made two prior offers at ￡38 and ￡40.
AB InBev said it believed the offer would be attractive to SABMiller shareholders, adding it was disappointed the UK-based company’s board had rejected both previous approaches.
The company also added an alternative to the cash offer of partial payment in shares, although AB InBev said it would limit this to 41 percent of SABMiller stock and is primarily designed to suit the UK brewer’s major shareholders Altria and the Santo Domingo family.
Under this offer shareholders would get ￡2.37 per share in cash plus ￡0.48 special unlisted AB InBev shares, which are convertible into ordinary AB InBev stock after a five-year lock-up period.
AB InBev said it expected most SABMiller shareholders would accept the all-cash offer and could reinvest their proceeds in its listed ordinary shares.
Top shareholder Altria, the tobacco group that has 26.56 percent of SABMiller, said it supported the bid and would be prepared to opt for the share alternative.
AB InBev chief executive Carlos Brito told a conference call that he also expected support from the Santo Domingo family, which holds a 13.9 percent stake through their company BevCo, according to Thomson Reuters data.
The merged group would be a brewing colossus making nearly a third of all beer consumed worldwide.
It would add Africa and certain Latin American and Asian breweries to AB InBev’s extensive presence across the Americas and add SABMiller’s Peroni, Grolsch, Pilsner Urquell and other international brands to AB InBev’s existing line-up, which includes Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona.
Analysts see this merger as the end-game of consolidation in brewing with the big four — AB InBev, SABMiller, Heineken NV and Carlsberg A/S — already present across the globe and brewing more than half of the world’s beer.
EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH: China extended its legal jurisdiction to ban some dual-use goods of Chinese origin from being sold to the US, even by third countries Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China. The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium. Companies and people overseas would be subject to
DOLLAR CHALLENGE: BRICS countries’ growing share of global GDP threatens the US dollar’s dominance, which some member states seek to displace for world trade US president-elect Donald Trump on Saturday threatened 100 percent tariffs against a bloc of nine nations if they act to undermine the US dollar. His threat was directed at countries in the so-called BRICS alliance, which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have applied to become members and several other countries have expressed interest in joining. While the US dollar is by far the most-used currency in global business and has survived past challenges to its preeminence, members of the alliance and other developing nations say they are fed
TECH COMPETITION: The US restricted sales of two dozen types of manufacturing equipment and three software tools, and blacklisted 140 more Chinese entities US President Joe Biden’s administration unveiled new restrictions on China’s access to vital components for chips and artificial intelligence (AI), escalating a campaign to contain Beijing’s technological ambitions. The US Department of Commerce slapped additional curbs on the sale of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and chipmaking gear, including that produced by US firms at foreign facilities. It also blacklisted 140 more Chinese entities that it accused of acting on Beijing’s behalf, although it did not name them in an initial statement. Full details on the new sanctions and Entity List additions were to be published later yesterday, a US official said. The US “will
TENSE TIMES: Formosa Plastics sees uncertainty surrounding the incoming Trump administration in the US, geopolitical tensions and China’s faltering economy Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), Taiwan’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday posted overall revenue of NT$118.61 billion (US$3.66 billion) for last month, marking a 7.2 percent rise from October, but a 2.5 percent fall from one year earlier. The group has mixed views about its business outlook for the current quarter and beyond, as uncertainty builds over the US power transition and geopolitical tensions. Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠), a vertically integrated supplier of plastic resins and petrochemicals, reported a monthly uptick of 15.3 percent in its revenue to NT$18.15 billion, as Typhoon Kong-rey postponed partial shipments slated for October and last month, it said. The
RSS