CVC submits only bid for InBev assets

Private equity firm CVC Capital Partners has made the only bid for Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Central and Eastern European assets, people familiar with the matter said last week.

TPG, which was expected to also make an offer by this week’s deadline, has not submitted a bid and is out of the process, one of the sources said.

Bankers said last week that offers were expected to be about $2 billion.

AB InBev has been looking for offers of about $2.8 billion, one person said last week.

The person added that AB InBev had explored the possibility of splitting up the Central and Eastern European assets.

The field of potential bidders has narrowed in recent weeks, with Cinven, Warburg Pincus and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. all having dropped out of the proceedings.

The brewer of Budweiser, Stella and Beck’s brand of beers, has said it wants to raise $7 billion from divestments to repay $45 billion of loans for InBev’s $52 billion takeover last year of U.S. brewer Anheuser-Busch. —Reuters