SABMiller has accepted a takeover proposal from Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, in a deal that would include cash and stock worth 68 billion pounds ($104.4 billion).
The new conglomerate would brew more than 30% of the world’s beer, merging AB InBev’s Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona lagers with SABMiller’s Peroni, Grolsch and Pilsner Urquell.
The deal would rank in the top five mergers in corporate history and would be the largest acquisition of a UK company. This transaction opens up the African market for AB InBev, a market with which SABMiller has a longstanding history.
It will be interesting to see what impact this has on the United States beer industry, an area where sales of macro produced beers have remained rather flat over the past few years.
