Inbev agree to pay $20 billion to buy out Modelo

BRUSSELS - Reuters

View of Anheuser-Busch InBev logo outside the headquarters in Belgium.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s biggest brewer, will swallow the half of Grupo Modelo it does not already own for $20.1 billion in the latest in a string of deals by big brewers looking for growth in emerging markets.

The owner of Budweiser and Stella Artois beers said on June 29 that it had reached agreement with Modelo’s controlling families for it to secure a leading position in a growing domestic beer market and capture the best-selling Mexican beer Corona Extra.

Modelo, founded in 1925, is Mexico’s biggest brewer with a 50 percent-plus market share in a virtual duopoly with Heineken’s FEMSA Cerveza in the world’s fourth-most-profitable beer market. Corona is the biggest imported beer in the lucrative United States market.

AB InBev is attracted to Modelo by a Mexican beer market that is growing at about 3 percent and cost savings that the company said would be at least $600 million a year.