Brewery offers severance deals

ANHEUSER-BUSCH InBev, the world’s largest brewer, has started a voluntary severance programme in South Africa, but the company said a newspaper report that it had offered redundancy to more than 1 000 managers was incorrect.

Citing an internal memo, Business Day said the brewer had offered more than 1 000 managers in South Africa voluntary severance following its merger with SABMiller.

AB InBev’s spokeswoman Robyn Chalmers said the company had started the programme but denied that 1 000 managerial jobs would go.

“It is too early in the process to say how many people may opt for the voluntary offer. It is thus completely incorrect to say that about 1 000 managerial roles will be reduced, as has been reported,” she said.

“It is important to note that no employee will be forcibly retrenched as a result of the merger.”

AB InBev bought nearest rival SABMiller for £79-billion (R1.3-trillion) last year in one of the largest corporate mergers in history and taking the company into Africa for the first time.

As part of the merger conditions, AB InBev was required to maintain the number of employees in SABMiller’s South African operations for five years after the date of the merger and not implement forced retrenchments.

Labour federation Cosatu said: “Cosatu has been warning that while investment in South Africa through mergers and acquisitions has increased, these investments have resulted in the loss of jobs over time in the acquired companies.”

The merger had resulted in retrenchments by a company that had not undertaken retrenchments in decades, the union federation said.