{"id":12556,"date":"2016-09-28T10:59:55","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T10:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=12556"},"modified":"2016-09-28T11:02:49","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T11:02:49","slug":"shareholders-approve-sabmiller-takeover-by-anheuser-busch-inbev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/business\/shareholders-approve-sabmiller-takeover-by-anheuser-busch-inbev.html","title":{"rendered":"Shareholders Approve SABMiller Takeover by Anheuser-Busch InBev"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shareholders Approve SABMiller Takeover by Anheuser-Busch InBev<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Shareholders Approve SABMiller Takeover by Anheuser-Busch InBev<\/strong> : LONDON \u2014 Shareholders of SABMiller and Anheuser-Busch InBev on Wednesday approved a deal valued at more than $100 billion to create a giant in the beer industry that would control some of the world\u2019s best-known brands, including Budweiser, Corona, Hoegaarden, Leffe and Stella Artois.<\/span><\/p>\n

The takeover of SABMiller by its larger rival, Anheuser-Busch InBev, was agreed to by shareholders despite a vocal minority of SABMiller investors objecting to the deal. The combined company would account for 27 percent of beer sales worldwide and would have annual revenue of about $55 billion.<\/span><\/p>\n

The deal would also give Anheuser-Busch InBev, already the world\u2019s largest brewer, a substantial operation in Africa, where it has little presence, and greater dominance in Latin America.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to driving long-term growth and creating value for all our stakeholders,\u201d Carlos Brito, the Anheuser-Busch InBev chief executive, said in a news release.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anheuser-Busch InBev said it expected to delist SABMiller\u2019s shares on Oct. 6 and shares in the combined company would begin trading in Brussels, in Johannesburg, in Mexico and in New York next month.<\/span><\/p>\n

The approvals on Wednesday came after Anheuser-Busch InBev, which is based in Belgium, spent nearly a year crafting a series of agreements to sell a variety of assets in order to win over regulators.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 In November, Anheuser-Busch InBev agreed to sell SABMiller\u2019s 59 percent stake in MillerCoors in the United States to SABMiller\u2019s partner in a joint venture, Molson Coors Brewing, for about $12 billion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 In March, it reached a deal to sell SABMiller\u2019s 49 percent stake in the maker of Snow, the world\u2019s best-selling beer, to China Resources Beer, a state-owned brewer, for about $1.6 billion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 In April, it agreed to sell the brands Grolsch, Meantime and Peroni to Asahi Group Holdings of Japan for 2.55 billion euros, or about $2.9 billion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 It also said it would be open to selling SABMiller\u2019s assets in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia as part of a package of divestments to win approval from European regulators.<\/span><\/p>\n

All of those transactions are subject to the SABMiller deal being completed, which Anheuser-Busch InBev said was likely to be done by Oct. 10. A series of largely perfunctory steps remain before the two brewing giants are officially combined.<\/span><\/p>\n

Along with having to make those agreements, Anheuser-Busch InBev was forced to increase its cash offer for SABMiller as the pound fell after Britain\u2019s vote to exit the European Union.<\/span><\/p>\n

That increase to 45 pounds, or about $58.41, a share still did not satisfy some SABMiller shareholders. They felt that the deal \u2014 as it was structured \u2014 favored SABMiller\u2019s two biggest investors, who own a combined 41 percent of the brewer, and that it continued to undervalue the company.<\/span><\/p>\n

To win the support of those two big shareholders, the American tobacco giant Altria and the Santo Domingo family of Colombia, the deal was structured to give them the ability to take restricted shares, instead of cash.<\/span><\/p>\n

That would help Altria and the Santo Domingo family avoid a costly tax bill after the transaction.<\/span><\/p>\n

Facing investor pressure, SABMiller agreed in July to treat those two shareholders as a separate class, allowing other investors to vote on the cash offer separately.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a result, the transaction hung on the outcome of a vote by a much smaller pool of SABMiller shareholders on Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aberdeen Asset Management, a British investment management company, and the United States Steel and Carnegie Pension Fund were among a group of SABMiller shareholders who publicly opposed the deal in the weeks heading up to the vote.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Wednesday, however, a majority of the company\u2019s shareholders approved the proposed merger, SABMiller said. They represented more than 75 percent of the votes cast \u2014 the threshold for the deal to proceed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source :<\/strong> http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/09\/29\/business\/dealbook\/sabmiller-anheuser-busch-inbev-beer-merger.html<\/span><\/p>\n

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