Down in one

13 September 2012 By Wayne Arnold

The Bangkok beer moguls twice failed to get their hands on Asia Pacific Breweries, but prodded Heineken into a higher bid. Now they’re offering to buy the 70 pct of parent company Fraser & Neave they don’t own. At S$8.88 per share, every extra share they get looks a bargain.

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TCC Assets, a company controlled by Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, on Sept. 13 offered S$8.88 ($7.16) per share to buy the roughly 70 percent of Singapore’s Fraser and Neave Ltd. that he and the companies his family controls do not already own. The bid values the whole of F&N at $10.3 billion.
The offer came after Charoen’s Thai Beverage PCL and TCC Assets increased their combined stake in F&N to 30 percent from 29 percent, according to a filing on Sept. 12 with the Singapore Exchange. Under Singapore law, a bidder must make a mandatory offer for a company if its stake reaches 30 percent.
F&N’s board have accepted Heineken’s latest offer of S$53 ($42) per share for its roughly 40 percent stake in Asia Pacific Breweries, according to a press release issued by Heineken on Aug. 17. Shareholders will meet to vote on the sale on Sept. 28. F&N’s share price rose as much as 5 percent to S$8.9 after Charoen’s offer on Sept. 12.
Heineken owns a 13.9 percent direct stake in APB, as well as half of a joint venture with F&N that in turn owns 64.8 percent of the company.

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