InBev acquires Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion; Budweiser to be flagship brand

14 July 2008

InBev and Anheuser-Busch have announced an agreement to combine the two companies, forming the world's leading global brewer. (See: InBev and Anheuser-Busch cease fire; in friendly talks)

Anheuser-Busch shareholders will receive $70 per share in cash, for an aggregate equity value of $52 billion, in an industry-transforming transaction.

In a $52-billion all-cash deal, Belgian brewer InBev has finally enterd into an agreement with Anheuser-Busch to merge their businesses, paving the way for creation of the world's largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev, and one of the world's five-largest consumer compsanies.

The two companies today said they had signed an agreement to combine the two companies, under a deal that would fettch Anheuser-Busch shareholders  $5 more than InBev had proposed to offer in its consent solicitation to the sharholders.

They will now receive $70 per share in cash,  for an aggregate equity value of $52 billion (Rs222,404 crore), in what the companies call "an industry-transforming transaction" that would make Anheuser-Busch a wholly owned subsidiary of InBev.

The companies said that the boards of directors of both companies' have unanimously approved the transaction and that InBev already had "fully committed financing" for the purchase of all of Anheuser-Busch's outstanding shares.

InBev has received signed credit facilities from a group of leading financial institutions, including Banco Santander, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Barclays Capital, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Fortis, ING Bank, JP Morgan, Mizuho Corporate Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland.