Published: October 27, 2009
Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI), the Belgian beer company created last year through the merger of Interbrew and AmBev, has sold its Central European operations to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners in a deal that could be worth US$3bn.
The deal sees CVC funds make their first acquire ABI’s operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. The private equity firm will also distribute Stella Artois, Beck’s, Löwenbräu, Hoegaarden, Spaten and Leffe in the above countries under license from ABI.
The transaction’s enterprise value is about US$2.2bn and additional rights to a future payment are estimated to be as much as US$800mn contingent on CVC’s return on its initial investment. ABI will have a right of first offer to reacquire the business should CVC decide to sell in the future.
Carlos Brito, CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev, says: “We are pleased to announce this transaction which enables us to exceed our stated commitment to achieve US$7bn in divestitures, while better focusing our resources towards our core markets.”
CVC raised some US$1bn of senior debt from a group of international and regional banks to back the acquisition. The deal is the firm’s first in the CEE region.
Barclays Capital and Lazard acted as financial advisors to ABI and Clifford Chance acted as legal advisor. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer acted as legal counsel to CVC.