InBev-Anheuser merger inevitable?

Someone seems to take a great interest in keeping the rumour mill running. This time it was an unidentified source in Belgium which claimed that a merger between InBev and U.S. brewer Anheuser-Busch is inevitable in the long run.

In February this year it was sources close to the situation in Brazil, who launched a flurry of newspaper articles all around the world when they speculated aloud that InBev would take over Anheuser-Busch. Very little has come of this rumour except that analysts were allowed to voice their pros and cons on such a feat.

Of course, Anheuser-Busch declined to comment on this tittle-tattle although, secretly, those with shares in the number one brewer of the U.S. must have been pleased with the gossip because it made A-B stock rise more than 3 percent.

If A-B shareholders were delighted, InBev’s shareholders must have been dancing around the table. Since February shares in InBev have risen 17 percent. Such are the consequences of idle chit-chat.

However not satisfied with the windfall profit, Belgian sources close to the situation must have tried to pull it off again. In June a statement by InBev executives was leaked to a Belgian business publication claiming that a merger had “big chances of happening one day”. The magazine Trends quoted its informers as having said that a merger with Anheuser-Busch at some point “belonged to the nature of things”.

Analysts have argued that a merger would find few problems with regulators given the limited overlap, but have wondered over the purpose of such a deal as the synergies would be so little.

Anheuser-Busch and InBev already have a deal under which Anheuser-Busch distributes InBev’s imported products in the United States.