Make mine a … eh, what does it matter? If the options don’t all come from the same place, they might soon.
AB InBev, the world’s largest beer maker, said Wednesday that it will approach SABMiller, the world’s second-largest beer maker, with an offer to buy the company. It’s unclear what the deal would be worth, though AB InBev had $47 billion in revenue in 2014, while SABMiller brought in $22.1 billion in a fiscal year that ended in March. Moreover, the deal would bring all of the following brands together under one roof: Bud, Bud Light, Corona, Michelob, Stella Artois, Becks, Hoegaarden, Leffe, Coors, Coors Light, Grolsch, Icehouse, Keystone, Milwaukee’s Best, Blue Moon, Foster’s, Pilsner Urquell, Peroni, Miller Lite, and of course the champagne of beers, High Life. And that’s only a partial list.
Rumors about further consolidation in the beer industry have been swirling, like so many unfiltered particles in a fermentation tank, for years. Bloomberg reports:
The acquisition of SABMiller would be the biggest in the industry’s history and cap more than a decade of consolidation across brewing companies. A potential combination of the beermakers had been seen as likely for years as they have limited geographical overlap and are not controlled by a family foundation like their main competitors, Heineken NV and Carlsberg A/S.
The companies control a complicated patchwork of market dominance—for example, SAB Miller is particularly strong in Africa. The two companies both have strong sales in Latin America, but not always in the same countries.