"InBev" sold brewers in central Europe to company "CVC Capital Partners" - new owner to take over brewer in Serbia

"Anheuser-Busch InBev" and "CVC Capital Partners" announced today (October 15, 2009) that the final contract had been signed, based on which "InBev" would sold its businesses in Central Europe to the leading global financial and consulting company "CVC Capital Partners" at the price of approximately 2.231 billion USD and for additional rights on payment of future expected incomes that were estimated at 800m USD, based on expected return of CVC's initial investment.

In accordance with the terms of the signed contract, the funds that CVC advises have accepted to buy ABI's businesses in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia.

CVC also agreed to produce and/or distribute brands "Stella Artois", "Beck’s", "Lowenbrau", "Hoegaarden", "Spaten and Leffe" in aforementioned countries, based on the license approved by ABI. ABI keeps all the rights on production and distribution of "Staropramen" in several countries, including Ukraine, Russia, USA, Germany and Great Britain.

In addition, ABI will also have priority in purchase if CVC decides to sell the companies in the future.

It is expected that the transaction will be completed by the end of January 2010.

Transaction details

The purchase price f 2.231 billion USD consists of:

• 1,618m USD in cash.
• 448m USD that are due for payment in six years, accepted without additional guarantee and with the possibility of extension of aforementioned deadline for two more years in case of restructuring of financial structure, with the interest rate of 8 to 15%.
• 165m USD worth of stocks of minor stockholders according to the information after the closing of the stock exchange on October 14th, 2009.
• Transaction is agreed in EUR. Amounts in USD are given according to the exchange rate of 1.4925 USD for 1 EUR.