The AB InBev logo is seen outside the brewer’s headquarters in Leuven, Belgium. AB InBev’s share price leapt 6.41% to €100.50 yesterday as investors reacted to a surprise news of the company’s takeover bid for Britain’s SABMiller.
AFP/London
European stock markets rose yesterday as investors toasted news that Belgian-Brazilian drinks giant AB InBev is brewing a blockbuster takeover bid for Britain’s SABMiller.
London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index climbed 1.49% to close at 6,229.21 points, while in the eurozone Frankfurt’s DAX 30 added 0.38% to finish at 10,227.21 and Paris’s CAC 40 jumped 1.67% to 4,645.84 points.
Madrid shot up 1.99% and Milan gained 0.71%.
SABMiller’s share price rocketed by a fifth in London, topping the FTSE risers’ board, after it revealed that Anheuser-Busch InBev intended to make a bid.
The brewer’s shares ended the day with a gain of 19.89% to 3,614 pence as investors reacted to the surprise news.
Across in Brussels, AB InBev’s share price leapt 6.41% to €100.50.
The blockbuster takeover would combine the world’s biggest brewer, AB InBev, with the second biggest, SABMiller.
The pair’s combined stock market value is about $245bn (€218bn) based on Tuesday’s closing share prices.
A potential deal would bring together AB InBev’s Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois beers with SABMiller’s Foster’s, Grolsch and Pilsner Urquell.
European equities were also buoyed yesterday by bumper Chinese gains on the eve of a key US interest rate call.
Wall Street stocks also rose yesterday as the markets digested a weak reading on consumer prices ahead of a key Federal Reserve interest rate decision.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.50% to stand at 16,682.36 points in midday trading.
The broad-based S&P 500 advanced 0.56% to 1,989.24, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.22% to 4,871.31.
The Labour Department said its consumer price index fell 0.1% in August, dragged lower by tumbling gasoline prices.
The fresh data signalled a continued lack of inflationary pressure that would support the Fed undertaking its first rate hike in more than nine years.
The Fed’s monetary policy committee is due to wrap up its two-day meeting today.
Traders see a 30% chance the Fed will raise interest rates today, up from 25% Tuesday morning, said a note from Wells Fargo Advisors.
In other European trading, shares in Glencore climbed after the Swiss mining and commodities giant announced it had raised $2.5bn via a shares sale as part of its vast debt-slashing plan.
London-listed Glencore said in a statement that it had sold new shares worth about £1.6bn or €2.2bn in order to pay down debt.
Glencore shares gained 5.19% to 134.7 pence.
In foreign exchange trading, the euro climbed to $1.1304 from $1.1272 late on Tuesday in New York.
