InBev announced on June 25th that it is reaffirming its desire to combine with Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc to form the world’s leading global brewer in a letter sent to August A. Busch IV, president and chief executive, and the Anheuser-Busch Board of Directors. In the letter, InBev reaffirmed its $65-a-share all-cash proposal to combine with Anheuser-Busch, which represents a 35% premium over Anheuser’s 30-day average share price prior to recent market speculation. InBev said that it has obtained committed financing and has paid approximately $50 million in fees, demonstrating InBev’s resolve to consummate a combination with Anheuser-Busch.

The following is a copy of the letter InBev sent to the Board of Anheuser-Busch:

June 25, 2008

Mr. August A. Busch IV President and Chief Executive Officer Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. One Busch Place St. Louis, Missouri 63118 USA

Proposal for Combination Creating the World’s Leading Beer Company

Dear August,

We are writing to confirm that InBev remains committed to our proposal to combine with Anheuser-Busch by means of acquiring all of the outstanding shares of Anheuser-Busch for $65 per share in cash. Our proposed price would deliver an immediate cash premium to your shareholders of 35% over the 30-day average share price prior to recent market speculation and 18% above the previous all-time high ...More Info

Dutch brewing giant, Heineken NV, needs to exercise more M&A muscle if it wants to keep up with the consolidation that is changing the global beer industry, Reuters cited Barron's report on Sunday, June 22.

Barron's wrote that Heineken has missed out on acquiring valuable targets because it prefers to use cash rather than equity in buying companies. Plus, Barron's said in its June 23 edition, its recent purchase of British brewer Scottish & Newcastle has hurt the stock, since the deal increases Heineken's exposure to slower-growing markets of Western Europe.

Barron's reported that Todd Lowenstein of HighMark Capital Management, which owns shares of Anheuser-Busch Cos Inc, said Heineken needs to act before all valuable assets vanish.

Barron's said a successful takeover of Anheuser by InBev NV could bring about a new era of beer industry consolidation and that Mexico's Femsa could be the next merger target. The paper said Femsa, which makes Sol and Dos Equis beers, could fetch as much as $80 a share, almost double the current price of its American depositary receipts.

InBev's bid for Anheuser-Busch to create the world's biggest brewer will put pressure on SABMiller to look at deals with Mexico's Modelo or FEMSA, Molson Coors or Foster's, Reuters commented on June 25th.

Analysts say InBev's $46.3 billion (23 billion pounds) bid will spark the London-based SABMiller into action, but with many potential targets controlled by families or trusts, it may take time for the brewer of Miller Lite, Peroni and Grolsch to react.

The focus has settled on Mexican brewers in the scramble for growth and strong brands by the world's top brewers and the nation's two big brewers Modelo and FEMSA are being talked about in the latest round of deals.

Anheuser owns 50.2 percent of Corona-brewer Modelo, but has no management control so Modelo's future has been thrown into the Anheuser-InBev battle, while FEMSA, the maker of Sol, is a favoured target if its controlling trust decides to sell out.

"FEMSA is the prettiest girl at the party and she knows it. And, when you are feeling especially pretty, it is easier to say "yes" to the most handsome boy at the party. That we believe would be SABMiller at this party at this time," said Tom Pirko, president of Bevmark, ...More Info

Efes Breweries International N.V, majority-owned subsidiary of Anadolu Efes Biracilik ve Malt Sanayii, the leading beverage company in Turkey is negotiating with JSC Kazbegi, the second largest brewer in Georgia, on the possible purchase of the company, The Financial Channel communicated on June 24th.

The parties are confirming talks on the transaction but the structure of the new company is still not clear.

According to Anadolu Efes an official statement primary agreement has already been reached. “We are expanding our business in Georgia with JSC Kazbegi, in partnership with Prof. George Topadze who is the majority owner of the Kazbegi business,” Cicek Usakligil, Investor Relations Manager of Anadolu Efes, informed The FINANCIAL.

“At this stage, we can say only that the negotiations are taking place on establishing a new factory, but further details are not to be disclosed,” Tea Skhiereli, Kazbegi representative said.

She added that they have an agreement with their partner prohibiting details of talks. The negotiating parties are refusing to disclose the expected cost of the transaction.

Topadze, who is a former MP and head of Oppositional party “Industry Saves Georgia”, owns majority shares of Kazbegi, which had an estimated market share of 39% in ...More Info

Members of the family that has run Anheuser-Busch Cos. for five generations gave differing responses to InBev NV's $46.3 billion takeover bid as the U.S. maker of Budweiser beer considered the unsolicited offer, Bloomberg commented on June 23.

Andrew D. Busch, an uncle of Chief Executive Officer August A. Busch IV, said in a June 21 statement that he wants the U.S. brewer to remain based in St. Louis and continue as a ``strong company.'' Another uncle, Adolphus Busch IV, urged Anheuser- Busch's board to accept the $65-a-share proposal.

Anheuser-Busch has been reviewing InBev's advances for more than a week without giving a response. A purchase would put the 132-year-old Budweiser beer in Belgian hands and would represent the third-biggest acquisition of a U.S. company by foreign buyer, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The family probably prefers ``an independent company under August Busch,'' said Thomas Russo, partner at Gardner Russo & Gardner in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who oversees more than $3 billion and owns shares of Anheuser-Busch. ``The answers that they give will help or hinder. It's a question of how you actually operate. They have a role in that.''

Anheuser-Busch directors met June 20 to discuss the Belgian beermaker's ...More Info

UK beer sales have fallen through the 5 billion litre mark for the first time since 1975 as the consumer downturn and smoking ban continue to hit Britain's pubs and brewers, The Telegraph posted on June 22.

News that annual beer sales have slipped below 50m hectolitres will come as a further blow to an industry already suffering as pubs go out of business and brewers are forced to consolidate.

Figures released to the brewing industry by the British Beer and Pub Association, and seen by The Sunday Telegraph, show total UK beer sales fell 1.7 per cent in the year to the end of April.

The effect of the decline in consumption, combined with rising utility and commodity costs, an increase in beer duty, and the impact of the consumer downturn and smoking ban is having a catastrophic impact on Britain's pubs.

Pub closures are running at 27 a week, according to the BBPA, amounting to some 1,200 that have been forced out of business over the last 12 months.

Nick Bish, chief executive of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, which counts 15,000 UK pubs among its members, said: "This is a bell-weather of the economic situation where you have a perfect storm ...More Info

On 24 June 2008, Duvel Moortgat nv reached an agreement with the receivers of Brouwerij Liefmans nv.

On the basis of this agreement, Duvel Moortgat nv acquires a large portion of the assets of the bankrupt companies, including the complete machinery, all the brands and recipes.

Earlier, Duvel Moortgat nv had already made a binding offer on the real estate of Brouwerij Liefmans nv in Ouderaarde. The receivers have granted Duvel Moortgat nv a right of use until the completion of some procedural aspects of the sale of this site.

In the first phase, Duvel Moortgat nv will concentrate primarily on the brown ales and fruit beers of the brand Liefmans brewed in Ouderaarde. This way, Duvel Moortgat nv can complete its existing product portfolio with a fine, authentic and traditional beer brand, in a market segment in which it was not active until now.

When Duvel Moortgat nv acquires the site in Ouderaarde, the company will make the necessary investiments to revalue the production site and give visitors a hearty welcome.

The price of the total transaction, including the real estate in Ouderaarde, amounts to 4.5 million Euro.

Companhia de Bebidas das Americas (AmBev), a unit of InBev, announced on June 23 that it plans to spend EUR85 million (USD$132 million) building a new malt factory in the southern Brazilian town of Passo Fundo.

The plant is scheduled to begin production in 2009 to supply breweries in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Sao Paulo, the beverage giant said in a statement.

The facility will employ 400 people to put out 110,000 tons a month of malt, AmBev said, adding that the project will generate additional jobs growing, storing and transporting barley.

Passo Fundo is located in Rio Grande do Sul, a center of barley production that is already home to two AmBev breweries and two distribution centers.

The firm dominates the Brazilian market with brands such as Skol, Brahma, Antarctica, Bohemia and Guarana Antarctica and is Latin America's biggest brewer.

AmBev, which bills itself as the largest privately owned consumer products company in Brazil, sealed in 2004 a "global alliance" with Belgium's InBev to create the world's No. 2 brewery group.

InBev is now trying to buy U.S. brewing giant Anheuser-Busch for $46.3 billion.

Andreas Graner, Thomas Thiel, Hangning Zhang, Elena Potokina, Mmanoj Prasad, Dragan Perovic, Raja Kota, Rajeev Kumar Varshney, Uwe Scholz, Ivo Grosse and Nils Stein. Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Gatersleben, Germany

Abstract
Abstract: As a resource for structural and functional barley genome analysis, more than 140 000 ESTs (expressed sequence tags) were generated from 22 cDNA libraries that yielded 25 224 tentative unigenes. About 50% of them belong to gene families. The size of the complete transcriptome is estimated to comprise between 35 000 and 75 000 genes. The barley EST collection is a rich source for the development of novel markers including SSRs (simple sequence repeats) and SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms). Several bioinformatic tools have been developed facilitating the computer-assisted analysis of EST databases for the presence of either SNPs or SSRs and the development of SNP-derived CAPS (cleaved amplified polymorphic sequences) markers. In an attempt to systematically map barley genes a high-density transcript map is under construction and presently comprises more than 1000 markers. This map is a gateway to comparative genomics with particular emphasis on the rice genome. 65% of the mapped ESTs showing a significant homology to rice ESTs were found to display a syntenic relationship between barley and rice. Thus, the barley EST resource facilitates the rapid and systematic transfer of genetic information from rice to barley and other Triticeae, which can readily be exploited for marker saturation of defined chromosome regions and their detailed comparison to rice. In the context of a functional genomics study, the complex trait “malting quality” is investigated using a barley cDNA array. By correlating the phenotypic malting trait data of selected barley lines with the corresponding expression profiles, a set of candidate genes was identified and further verified by genetic analysis. Keywords: ESTs; functional genomics; malting quality; DNA-marker; rice; synteny ... Load full article, 8 pages, 363 Kb, PDF file