Coca-Cola is next target of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Lemann - report (translated)
Atlanta-based Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), the world’s largest soft drinks bottler, is the next target of Brazilian billionaire Jorge Paulo Lemann, who controls Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch InBev after the acquisition of SABMiller, IstoE Dinheiro reported in its cover story this weekend. The Sao Paulo-based Portuguese-language business weekly reported that Coca-Cola is the next target of Lemann, without giving a source.
"We would adore to acquire Coca-Cola," Lemann has told close friends, IstoE Dinheiro reported without identifying the people who supposedly cited the investor. Lemann said he could manage Coca-Cola with only 200 people though Coke now has more than 500 executives only in its headquarters in Atlanta, the Portuguese-language business magazine reported, citing the unidentified friends of Lemann.
Lemann is a little closer to his biggest dream of acquiring Coca-Cola after Anheuser-Busch InBev reached an agreement to buy SABMiller, IstoE Dinheiro reported. Anheuser-Busch InBev agreed to pay USD 104.2bn for SABMiller, or a total of USD 122bn including assumed debt, according to the report, which had no statement from Lemann, who maintains a home in Switzerland.
Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewery, controls Cia. de Bebidas das Americas (Bovespa: AMBV3), or AmBev, which has more than two-third’s of the Brazilian beer market, as reported.
Lemann, with his Brazilian partners Marcel Telles and Carlos Alberto Sicupira, through the investment fund 3G Capital Partners, is making acquisitions of global dimensions, regardless of the economic scenario, according to IstoE Dinheiro.
3G Capital Partners converts crises into opportunities, said Andrew Flint, a consultant at Swiss investment bank UBS in New York, IstoE Dinheiro reported. 3G Capital Partners controls Anheuser-Busch InBev.
This publication earlier has reported that Lemann may wish to bid for Coke, though the cover story report in IstoE Dinheiro this weekend may be the most extensive and emphatic report on the possibility.
IstoE Dinheiro