Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc.'s board of directors voted Sunday to accept Belgian brewer InBev's $49.9 billion takeover offer, according to media reports.

Reports surfaced Friday that A-B's board was poised to accept the offer from InBev, which boosted its offer by $5 to $70 a share in an effort to seal a friendly deal and create the world's largest brewer.

In a release, InBev said the deal has an aggregate equity value of $52 billion and called it "an industry-transforming transaction."

Busch Entertainment Corp., the family entertainment division of Anheuser-Busch, owns Busch Gardens and SeaWorld and operates nine theme parks across the country. The company also announced in February that it planned to open four additional parks to be built in Dubai. Busch Entertainment announced in October that it would move its corporate headquarters from St. Louis to Orlando.

There was no detail in the InBev release about the theme park operations which include Tampa's Busch Gardens and Adventure Island, and Sea World in Orlando.

A-B's Jacksonville brewery employs around 600 people in it's 1-million-square-foot plant on the Northside. The plant has been in operation for 38 years, according th the Business Journal's Book of Lists.

The combined company, which is slated to house its North American headquarters in St. Louis, will be called Anheuser-Busch-InBev. A-B would have representation on the combined company's board of directors.

With roughly 40 percent of the combined company's revenues to be generated in the United States, the company will draw on the collective expertise of Anheuser-Busch's work force and its culture of quality, the release said.

"Given the limited geographical overlap between the two businesses and the efficiency of Anheuser-Busch's brewery footprint in the United States, all of Anheuser-Busch's U.S. breweries will remain open," InBev executives said.

InBev chief executive officer Carlos Brito, a 48-year-old Brazilian known for cutting costs, will be chief executive of the combined company.

"We have been successful business partners for quite some time, and this is the natural next step for us in an increasingly competitive global environment," he said in a prepared statement.

Budweiser, together with Stella Artois and Beck's, will become the combined company's leading global brands, he said.

An A-B spokeswoman did not immediately return a message seeking comment Sunday to sister publication the St. Louis Business Journal.

The reported deal comes after a month of hostility between America's largest domestic brewer and the Belgian giant, paving the way for the creation of the world's largest beer company with a quarter of the global market.

InBev unveiled its original $46.3 billion, $65-a-share offer in June, a number the brewer of Budweiser dismissed as insultingly low.

InBev then sought to oust the American company's board and replace it with its own slate, while A-B accused InBev of misleading shareholders about its financial backing and blasted it for having operations in Cuba.

St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. (NYSE: BUD), through its Anheuser-Busch Inc. subsidiary, is the leading domestic brewer, holding a 48.5 percent share of U.S. beer sales. The company also manufactures and recycles aluminum cans and operates theme parks.

To finance the deal, some analysts have speculated A-B's theme parks, including Busch Gardens in Tampa, could be on the sale block. Kris Kippers, an analyst at Belgian brokerage Petercam SA, said InBev could receive about $2.9 billion if it sold Busch Entertainment Corp., the theme park division.

But in its release, InBev said it has fully committed financing with 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. The transaction will be financed with $45 billion in debt, including a $7 billion bridge financing for divestitures of non-core assets from both companies.

The transaction is subject to the approval of InBev and Anheuser-Busch shareholders, and other customary regulatory approvals. Shareholders of both companies will have an opportunity to vote on the proposed combination at special shareholder meetings that will be scheduled at a later date.

 

Another great American owned giant falls...............

 

I wish I could say good riddance to crappy beer, but they'll still be bottling their same old crap. Maybe InBev will improve on it a little....Hey, I can hope.

 

That is all part of what is killing the American giant. We get so many people from othe rplaces that come here, start a business...make it successful, then die and pass it on to their kid or someone else....Said company then gets sold to some other place in another country all in the interest of making short term profit. Sad really.

 

yup................

 

We are slowly being bought out by other counrties and will eventually be parts of other countries. You are currently in the future Extended Cuba. California will soon become part of Mexico again as well as Texas. The more northern states will become Extended Germany and England. Each will have it's own army and we will be at war every other week with a different country. But it's all ok...Grandpa got 75 billion for selling the beer company....and spent it all on hookers and coke.

 

I worked in a MILLER Brewery for a few days installing lexan around the dispensing areas. And I found it kind of funny, that there was 5 or 6 different cans/bottles going through the same dispenser but the cans were different. Alot of them were weird numbered beers that I had never heard of, so I imagine they were going overseas?

 

One day this country will be surviving of other countries the way things are going now. Everyone is selling out to companies over seas. So the profits leave this country. Its a shame. I feel anything that isnt made american should be sent back.

 

Atleast it wen't back to its heritage vs going to some middle eastern.

 

i no longer drink bud light. it was a good run. 11 years