Chen Fashu,
ranked 31 on Forbes' list of the 400 richest Chinese last year, bought a 7% stake in Tsingtao Brewery Co. Ltd. for $235 million. Anheuser-Busch InBev NV sold the last of its stake in China's biggest brewer as it tries to shrink $45 billion of debt incurred from its recent $52 billion Euro-U.S. brewing merger.
It was noted that after the megamerger, regulators barred AB InBev from increasing its 27% stake in Tsingtao or its 28.5% stake in Zhujiang Beer Ltd., saying they needed to
prevent the brewer from becoming a monopoly.
Later, AB InBev sold a 19.9% stake in the Chinese brewer to Asahi Breweries Ltd. for $667 million. Tsingtao, which recently reported
first-quarter earnings, issued a statement Thursday saying how that deal would
not affect the control of Tsingtao Brewery Group.
As for Zhujiang, though, president of AB InBev China, Y. R. Cheng, said there were
no plans to sell that stake.
AB InBev has a lot more noncore selling to do to work of that giant debt load. The beer giant said this week it
sold No. 2 South Korean brewer Oriental Brewery to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. for $1.8 billion.
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Baz Hiralal
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