Private equity out of Asahi race; Coca-Cola, Heineken ready final bids
Any good beer is best served cold - but the same can't be said for any good sale process.
The sale of a portfolio of Carlton and United Breweries' beer and cider brands is reaching its final furlong. Louie Douvis
And Street Talk understands there's some cooling off when it comes to the private equity interest in Asahi's up-for-sale drinks portfolio, which is on the block at the behest of the competition regulator.
Sources told this column that the PE bidders who had been around the process – which launched in May this year – had bailed out.
The two most recent departures are TPG Capital and E&P-advised Adamanetem Capital, both of which have now joined fellow buyout firms Quadrant Private Equity, Pacific Equity Partners and KKR on the sidelines.
From what this column understands, the buyout funds' interest waned as it become clear Carlton and United Breweries' previous owner, Anheuser-Busch InBev, still had some licensing rights over Stella Artois, one of the five up-for-sale brands. And those rights limited what this auction's buyer could do with the brand, particularly around any divestment.
Stella is one of two CUB beer brands on the block, along with cider brands Strongbow, Bonamy’s and Little Green. Beck's is the other up-for-sale beer label.
So, with less than a fortnight until binding bids are due to Asahi and its bankers at Rothschild Australia, the auction shapes as battle between strategic heavyweights Coca Cola Amatil and Heineken, advised by Macquarie Capital and Deutsche Bank respectively. Their participation in the sale was unveiled by this column in August.
The pair are understood to be running hard at the portfolio and are both expected to lob final bids.
Asahi is being forced to sell them by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission after it bought CUB for $16 billion in July last year, in a transaction where the Japanese acquirer was also advised by Rothschild.
The drinks giant and its bankers whittled down bidders for the portfolio to a shortlist last month and now the auction was entering its final furlong.
News of the dwindling private equity interest in the sale comes a month after Asahi announced it was restructuring its Australian operations, which would see Asahi reduce its local divisions from four to three.
The changes would mean the Asahi Premium Beverages division would be merged with the CUB business in the December quarter.
The division will still operate under the CUB name and continue to be run by CUB chief executive Peter Filipovic.
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