U.S. Approves AB InBev's Acquisition Of SABMiller

(RTTNews) - Anheuser-Busch InBev NV/SA or AB InBev (BUD) announced that it has entered into a consent decree with the United States Department of Justice, which clears the way for U.S. approval of its recommended combination with SABMiller plc (SBMRY.PK, SAB.L). The company reaffirmed its expectation to close the global transaction in the second half of 2016.

As part of the consent decree and consistent with AB InBev's approach to proactively address potential regulatory concerns, the company agreed to divest SABMiller's U.S. interest in MillerCoors to Molson Coors. This divestiture, which was previously announced between AB InBev and Molson Coors, is conditioned on the successful closing of the combination of AB InBev with SABMiller.

The terms of the consent decree formalize prior commitments the company's U.S. entity Anheuser-Busch has made including: AB InBev will not acquire a distributor if doing so would result in more than 10% of its annual volume being distributed through wholly-owned distributorships in the U.S. AB InBev will not terminate any wholesalers as a result of the combination with SABMiller.

In addition, certain aspects of the company's U.S. sales programs and policies will be reviewed and modified to conform to the consent decree.

AB InBev has now obtained approval in 21 jurisdictions. Clearance decisions, with or without conditions, have now been obtained: in North America (US and Canada); Asia-Pacific (Australia, India, and South Korea); in Africa (Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa); in Europe (the EU, Albania, Moldova, Turkey and Ukraine); and in Latin America (Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay). Approval in Ecuador is subject to certain conditions.