ThaiBev buys majority stake in Vietnam’s biggest brewer
HANOI: ThaiBev took a majority stake worth $4.8 billion in Vietnam’s largest brewer, Sabeco, at a highlyanticipated auction yesterday for shares of the stateowned beer behemoth. Through its domestic unit Vietnam Beverage, Thai Beverage was the only company to bid for 343.662 million shares, or a 53.59 percent stake, in the company, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said earlier. An unnamed domestic individual also bid on 20,000 shares, it added. They were the only two investors listed.
The Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange confirmed in a report after the sale yesterday the sole investors were “successful” in their bids. Sabeco, the country’s largest brewer which produces the popular Saigon Special and 333, announced late last month it would sell off a nearly 54 percent stake in the company for $14.10 per share, and that foreign ownership would be capped at 49 percent. The company is already 10 percent foreign-owned.
The majority of ThaiBev’s recently-established Vietnam Beverage is domestically owned, and it is considered a local company. Analysts said the share price, foreign ownership cap and a short time span likely turned off potential international bidders who were given less than three weeks to conduct due diligence. The Vietnamese government may have also tapped ThaiBev for the sale, said Kevin Snowball, CEO of PXP Vietnam Asset Management in Ho Chi Minh City. “I think that they preferred ThaiBev, I don’t think it was a particularly open auction,” he told AFP.
Sabeco shares closed at $13.60 yesterday, down slightly from earlier in the day. The much-delayed sale comes as Vietnam’s cash-strapped government is seeking to raise funds by “equitising” hundreds of stateowned enterprises-its term for privatization-including its crown-jewel beer makers. —AFP