AB InBev raises offer to buy SABMiller at 42.15 pounds/sh

KMOX reported the story on September 16, of SABMiller being open to a potential buyout offer from AB InBev.

The Belgian-Brazilian giant, which brews Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois, said it was disappointed that SABMiller had rejected its two previous lower-priced offers “without any meaningful engagement”.

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 created to suit the British brewer’s major shareholders Altria MO.N and the Santo Domingo family.

AB InBev’s bid to create a $275 billion (£181 billion) brewing colossus was revealed by SABMiller in the middle of last month with every sign that the Belgian-American bidder was keen on a friendly deal. Executives of the London-based brewer of Peroni and Foster’s beer reportedly regard a deal of approximately 45 pounds a share as representing a fair value.

Glencore was up just 2.9p at 118p, after surging 21 per cent on Monday on reports that it is in talks to sell its agriculture unit, valued at around $10 billion (£6.6bn).

AB InBev said it meant to establish a secondary listing and regional headquarters in Johannesburg.

Notwithstanding negative growth in Zimbabwe, SABMiller’s beverage volumes rose by 6 percent in the second and 5 percent in the six months to September.

Under United Kingdom takeover rules, AB InBev has until 18:00 on October 14 to make an offer or announce it doesn’t intend to proceed. It’s lining up lenders including Bank of America Corp. and Banco Santander SA to arrange as much as $US70 billion in financing for its takeover proposal, people familiar with the matter said last week.

It said it was disappointed its two prior offers were turned down by the FTSE 100 company.

Eater has also reached out to both AB-InBev and SABMiller for comment on the situation.

But reported revenues fell by 9% due to the depreciation of emerging market currencies against the United States dollar.

The group said it had brought forward the second quarter trading update because it is required to make timely updates to the market while it is subject to the United Kingdom takeover code.

“Yes, negative currency movements had a significant impact on the results we are publishing, but we are still going strong with fantastic long-term prospects”, insisted Alan Clark, SABMiller Managing Director.