Each time the SABMiller board has refused to engage.
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However, continual resistance could result in a major takeover war, which AB InBev is not shying away from.
In his United States conference call, Mr Brito appealed to SABMiller’s minority shareholders to voice their view to the board, which could be interpreted as a “hostile lite” approach (despite ABInBev having stressed its desire to gain the recommendation from the SABMiller board).
Top Australian investment bank Macquarie Group said it has agreed to buy ANZ Banking Group’s dealer finance portfolio for A$8.2 billion ($5.91 billion).
“I don’t want to go there now”. “I think we’re getting very much closer to the endgame”.
SABMiller promptly rejects the offer, saying the terms, including a lower value shares-and-cash offer created to appeal to its two biggest shareholders, still “very substantially” undervalues the company. Altria and the BevCo company of Colombia’s Santo Domingo family together own nearly 41 percent of the company.
Also, it said Altria “has publicly stated that it supports our proposal”. BevCo has two seats on the SABMiller board. An AB InBev-SABMiller tie-up doesn’t offer a path to reverse that trend and may make it even worse, said Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association, a trade group for independent, craft brewers.
“AB InBev needs SABMiller but has made opportunistic and highly conditional proposals, elements of which have been deliberately created to be unattractive to many of our shareholders”, Jan du Plessis said in a statement. AB InBev had raised its price to £42.15 a share in cash after two previous offers were rebuffed.
AB InBev shares were up 2%, after opening 4% higher.
Jeremy Cunnington at Euromonitor worldwide said that “AB InBev’s bid for SABMiller is the inevitable conclusion of over a decade of consolidation within the brewing industry”.
However, James Edwards Jones, analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said that the cash and share offer worked out at an average of £40.24 per share, “some way below what we would regard as a knockout bid”.
It would add Africa and certain Latin American and Asian breweries to AB InBev’s presence across the Americas. Brito said in a statement on Thursday.
Meanwhile SABMiller said its board members, excluding those from Altria, had been unanimous in rejecting the approach.
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The Belgian-Brazilian beer giant, which is attempting what would be one of the world’s biggest ever takeovers, also rejected criticism by SAB that it had not adequately assessed the competition obstacles facing the mooted deal.
