AB INBEV: Close to acquiring control of CND ?

Various press articles in the past days rumour that AB InBev may be in the front seat for acquiring control of Dominican Republic’s brewer Cerveceria Nacional Dominicana (CND). CND could be valued at $ 2.5bn, according tothe Wall Street Journal.
Press articles suggests that AmBev and CND would merge their operations in the Dominican Republic and AmBev would gain control. The current majority owner, Grupo Leon Jimenes (84% stake), would hence retain a stake in the business. What would happen to the remainder, owned partly by Heineken (9.3%) and other minority shareholders (6.7%) is unknown.

Our View:
AB InBev is by far the leading brewer in the Americas region. It currently has a number two position in the Dominican Republic, which has about 10m habitants and a per capita beer consumption of about 40 liters. Allthough it would make sense to strengthen that position, obviously this would be a small deal for AB InBev (we remind that annual EBITDA generation is about $ 15.4bn). No change to our Hold rating and € 56 target price.