AB InBev plans sale of Peroni and Grolsch when £70 billion SABMiller takeover completes

On the block: SABMiller's Peroni brand
Press image
Hazel Sheffield30 November 2015
City Spy

Our unmissable weekly email of all the gossip, rumours and covert goings-on inside the Square Mile

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Peroni and Grolsch will reportedly be put up for sale by AB InBev to allay regulatory fears about its £70 billion takeover of SABMiller.

SABMiller, which owns the two lager brands, caved into to AB InBev's advances in October.

The merger will create a beer colossus responsible one in three pints of beer sold around the world and regulators are concerned that the tie-up will jeopardise competition in Europe's beer market.

The Sunday Times reported that Peroni and Grolsch will sold off when the deal completes, though that remains to be confirmed.

AB InBev already owns Stella Artois, Budweiser and Corona, which sell more than Peroni and Grolsch.

There are fears that its acquisition of SABMiller could stifle competition in the beer market in Italy and the Netherlands, where the two companies have combined market shares of 30% and 27%, respectively.

Regulators use 30% as a market share benchmark to measure whether mergers and acquisitions would affect competition.

In November, AB InBev agreed to buy SABMiller for about $108 billion in deal that will create a brewing behemoth that controls 30% of the global beer market.

AB InBev is thought to be more interested in SABMiller because of its presence in new markets in Latin America and Africa, rather than its global beer brands.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in