PIC anti SABMiller buyout

The Public Investment Corporation opposes a takeover of SABMiller by larger competitor Anheuser-Busch InBev.

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Johannesburg - The Public Investment Corporation, a South African state-owned pension fund manager that owns a stake in brewer SABMiller, said it opposes a takeover by larger competitor Anheuser-Busch InBev because it could create a brewer that’s too dominant, hurting consumers.

“Quite frankly, I’m not in favour of it,” CEO Daniel Matjila said by phone on Tuesday. “We may be creating some kind of a monopoly going forward which may have a serious impact on the global economy and beer market in general.”

Matjila declined to say which way the Pretoria-based PIC, which owns 3.14 percent of SABMiller, would vote on an offer should one be made. London-based SABMiller has rejected an informal takeover offer from AB InBev of about 66.4 billion pounds ($100 billion) that it considered too low, according to people familiar with the matter.

If successful, the combination would create a dominant force in a brewing sector that’s been re-aligned through a decade of increasingly large mergers, and attract heavy scrutiny from antitrust regulators around the world. Controlled by a group of wealthy Brazilian investors led by Jorge Paulo Lemann, AB InBev is itself the result of deals to unite major Belgian, American, and Latin American brewers.

“I’m hoping that the authorities will be able to apply their minds to protect consumers out there,” Matjila said. The PIC, Africa’s largest money manager, is owned by the South African government and manages most state-worker pension funds.

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