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Johannesburg - China Resources Beer (Holdings) will soon ask investment banks to pitch for a role advising on options for its Chinese brewery joint venture with SABMiller [JSE:SAB], people with knowledge of the matter said.
The state-backed company is seeking advisers as it weighs a potential purchase of all or part of SABMiller’s 49% stake in China Resources Snow Breweries, maker of the world’s best-selling beer, the people said. China Resources has told banks it will send out a formal request for proposals as early as this week, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private.
Anheuser-Busch InBev may need to sell its stake in the brewer of Snow lager to secure Chinese antitrust approval for its $110bn acquisition of SABMiller, which will create the world’s biggest beer company. SABMiller’s stake in the Chinese venture could fetch as much as $3.6bn, Nomura Holdings wrote in a November 16 research report.
China Resources aims to pick advisers by the end of the year, the people said. AB InBev hasn’t yet decided whether it will sell the stake, and China Resources isn’t set on any particular course of action, the people said.
Spokespersons for AB InBev, China Resources and SABMiller declined to comment.
Several banks have reached out to China Resources in recent weeks to offer financing for any potential buyout of the Snow joint-venture stake, according to the people. China Resources is seen as the logical buyer if AB InBev decides to sell, as it has a right of first refusal, the people said.
Snow beer, which had a 23% market share in China last year, outsells all other beers globally, data from research firm Euromonitor show. The partnership between SABMiller and China Resources, which began with two breweries in 1994, operates more than 90 breweries across China and employs more than 59 000 staff, according to SABMiller’s website.
