There's a high chance of Anheuser-Busch InBew and SABMiller joining forces in a US $100-billion merger.
With Carlsberg protected by a trust and Heineken being family owned, its reasonable to believe that the two biggest brewers in the world could merge together.
Industry experts expect its Budweiser and Stella Artois brands might combine with SABMiller’s Peroni and Grolsch. Some are predicting a deal within a year.
AB InBev has evolved from a small Belgian brewer in 1366, into a powerhouse with 17 billion-dollar brands.
Under Chief Executive Carlos Brito, the firm is famous for purchasing assets, aggressively cutting costs and swiftly moving on.
When it comes to the next target, many independent breweries are in Asia. But a large number are family or state-controlled, such as Thailand's ThaiBev or Vietnam's Sabeco, and unlikely to be had on the cheap. Heineken paid 35 times trailing earning for control of Asia Pacific Breweries Ltd last year.
INBEV joining SABMiller will be an expensive move. However, analysts say a tie-up would be straightforward with antitrust issues relatively easy to fix and immediate benefits of scale.
