Surprise bidder for Peroni and Grolsch

The investment vehicle of the Swiss Jacobs family is rumoured to be interested in buying the beer brands Grolsch and Peroni from AB-Inbev, Belgian media reported on 22 January 2015.

AB-InBev will sell Peroni, Grolsch and London’s Meantime brewery to prevent the acquisition of SABMiller getting whacked by competition watchdogs.

Jacobs Holding is one of the candidates, but certainly not the only one. According to news agency reports, the other bidders that have been shortlisted are Asahi (Japan) and Thai Beverage (Thailand), but also the investment funds EQT, Bain Capital and PAI. The bidders are only given a few weeks for due diligence. After that they must put a binding offer on the table, sources say.

How big the price tag will ultimately be is unclear. Insiders say it could exceed USD 3 billion.

Jacobs Holding, led by the Belgian Patrick De Maeseneire, is the investment vehicle of the former German now Swiss Jacobs family. It was founded in 1994 by entrepreneur Klaus J. Jacobs (died 2008) with the proceeds from the sale of the coffee-to-chocolate company Jacobs Suchard to Altria in 1990.

After the holding sold its stake in human resource consulting company Adecco in 2013, it has been sitting on a cash pile estimated at USD 2.8 billion (EUR 2.6 billion). It appears that Jacobs Holding is looking for targets to reinvest that money. For now, its portfolio consists solely of cash and a 50.1 percent stake in Barry Callebaut, the largest industrial chocolate producer in the world.

The bidding could get exciting.