Second Huge Booze Acquisition in Southeast Asia in a Week (Reuters)
The world???s largest brewery, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA, announced it will be buying South Korea???s Oriental Brewery Co Ltd (OB) for $5.8 billion, including debt. This deal gives the ???King of Beers??? a second reign over OB, as InBev had held the company until it sold to KKR in 2009 for $1.8 billion. The deal follows on the heels of another gigantic beverage buyout when Japan???s Suntory Holdings agreed to buy Beam for $13.6 billion last week. So what???s the rush to buy up booze in Southeast Asia? Well, it has a lot to do with the fact that the region holds a $258 billion market that is growing twice as fast as the rest of the world???s beverage consumption. Maybe it is time for you to belly up to the investment-beverage bar?
