全球最大啤酒酿造商百威英博(Anheuser-Busch InBev)正考虑收购竞争对手SABMiller。这笔潜在交易将缔造一家2750亿美元的企业，届时全球每三瓶啤酒就有一瓶是该企业生产的。
该交易的一方拥有百威啤酒(Budweiser)和时代啤酒(Stella Artois)品牌，另一方拥有佩罗尼(Peroni)品牌和高仕啤酒(Grolsch)品牌。合并后的企业已有“巨型酿酒商”之称。该交易的规模将进入史上前六大交易之列。而且，在大宗并购交易已经是2007年来最强的今年，其规模将位居榜首。
该交易将标志着全球啤酒酿造业一轮非同寻常的整合进入新阶段，其推动者是以豪尔赫?保罗?莱曼(Jorge Paulo Lemann)为首的一组巴西投资者。这些投资者还创办了巴西私募股权集团3G资本(3G Capital)，该集团一直在收购亨氏(Heinz)、卡夫(Kraft)和汉堡王(Burger King)等美国食品企业——其中部分收购是在投资者沃伦?巴菲特(Warren Buffett)的支持下发起的。
过去十年，经过一系列并购交易，百威英博和SABMiller已成为全球最大的两家啤酒酿造商。再加上喜力(Heineken)和嘉士伯(Carlsberg)，这些企业生产的啤酒占了全球一半。
考虑到两家企业的规模，在包括美国和中国在内的多个国家，为获得监管机构对并购交易的批准，百威英博将不得不同意出售一些资产。SABMiller通过与Molson Coors建立的合资企业米勒康胜(MillerCoors)，占有美国啤酒市场30%的份额。此外，通过与华润创业(China Resources Enterprise)建立的合资公司，SABMiller还占有中国啤酒市场23%的份额。（中国进出口网）
Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, is exploring a takeover of rival SABMiller in a deal that would create a $275bn company responsible for one out of every three beers produced globally.
A tie-up between the owner of Budweiser and Stella Artois and the group behind Peroni and Grolsch, dubbed “mega-brew”, would rank as one of the six largest takeovers in history and the biggest in a year that was already the strongest for blockbuster deals since 2007.
It would mark the latest stage of a remarkable consolidation in the global brewing industry driven by a group of Brazilian investors led by Jorge Paulo Lemann. They are also the founders of 3G Capital , the Brazilian private equity group which has been buying up US food companies such as Heinz, Kraft and Burger King sometimes with the support of investor Warren Buffett.
A series of deals over the past decade have transformed AB InBev and SABMiller into the world’s two biggest brewers. They, along with Heineken and Carlsberg , make half the world’s beer.
Given the size of the two companies, AB InBev would have to agree to divestitures to obtain regulatory approval for a deal in multiple countries, including the US and China. SABMiller has a near-30 per cent share of the US beer market via MillerCoors, its joint venture with Molson Coors. It also has 23 per cent of China’s beer market through a joint venture with China Resources Enterprise.
