SABMiller PLC clinched Foster’s Group Ltd. with a sweetened $10.2 billion offer for Australia’s biggest brewer after three months of pursuit.
SABMiller will pay $5.24 a share in cash for Melbourne-based Foster’s, the United Kingdom company said Wednesday. Foster’s shareholders will also get 30 cents a share as part of a previously announced capital return and a 13.25-cent final dividend.
The purchase will be the biggest ever by London-based SABMiller and give it access to about half of the Australian beer market. SABMiller’s initial attempts to buy the maker of Victoria Bitter were rebuffed by Foster’s management as undervaluing the brewer, one of the world’s most profitable. “The deal makes strategic and financial sense for SAB,” said Simon Hales, an analyst at Barclays Capital in London. “It’ll be taken well even though the headline offer price is slightly more than we would have hoped.”
SABMiller’s acquisition of Foster’s will be the biggest takeover of a brewer since InBev NV acquired Anheuser-Busch Cos. for $52 billion in 2008. Bloomberg News
