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AB InBev cheers SABMiller takeover in ‘Megabrew’ deal

Back in July, AB InBev raised its offer for SABMiller to £45 a share from £44, after sterling slumped following Britain’s Brexit vote to leave the European Union.

The improved offer valued the London-headquartered SABMiller at the equivalent of £79 billion. InBev, based in Leuven in Belgium, had agreed in November last year to buy SABMiller.

The deal is expected to boost AB InBev’s prospects in developing markets in Africa and China, where a SABMiller joint venture produces Snow — the world’s best selling beer by volume.

To win EU approval, AB InBev has agreed to a long series of concessions, including the sale of SABMiller’s Peroni, Grolsch and Meantime brands to Japanese rival Asahi.

The EU also demanded the brewer also divest SABMiller’s business in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

AB InBev has already indicated that it will cut around 5,500 jobs after it completes the takeover, slashing about three percent of its enlarged staff over three years following the tie-up.

SABMiller employs about 70,000 employees in more than 80 countries, while AB InBev has about 150,000 staff in 26 countries, according to company figures.

World’s top five mergers

Shareholders of brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev on Wednesday approved the takeover of rival SABMiller, a blend that would create the biggest beercompany in the world.

The deal is worth $103 billion, which would make it the fourth biggest of all time.

Here is a list of the top five mergers:

1. The world’s biggest merger and acquisition deal remains British telecom company Vodafone’s purchase of Germany’s Mannesmann for $180 billion in February 2000.

2. In 2001, the AOL-Time Warner merger at $165 billion came to symbolise the excesses of the first dot-com boom. The tie-up turned out to be a flop and the companies split again in 2009.

3. In 2013, Vodafone sold US telecoms giant Verizon a 45-percent stake in their joint venture Verizon Wireless for $130.1 billion.

4. The AB InBev purchase of SABMiller is valued at $103 billion.

5. US drug company Pfizer acquired rival Warner Lambert in February 2000 for $90 billion. The New York-based giant then become the world’s biggest pharmaceutical group.

Meanwhile, a proposed merger of the US groups Dow Chemical and DuPont valued at $130 billion was unveiled in December 2015, but it has not yet been finalised.

 

 

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