InBev Makes $65 a Share Bid for Anheuser-Busch

Anheuser-Busch said on Wednesday that it received a $46.3 billion takeover bid from Belgium's InBev in a move to further consolidate the global beer industry.

The Anheuser-Busch headquarters in St. Louis, Mo.

InBev, which makes Stella Artois and Beck's, is offering $65 per share for Anheuser, which is the leading U.S. brewer with 48.5 percent of the market.

Its shares closed at $58.35 on Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange. News of the bid sent the U.S. brewer's shares up about 7 percent.

Anheuser, which makes Budweiser and Michelob, said its board of directors "will evaluate the proposal carefully and in the context of all relevant factors, including Anheuser-Busch's long-term strategic plan."

The company said its board expects to make a determination regarding the proposal "in due course."

In addition to its core brands like Budweiser and Bud Light, St. Louis-based Anheuser owns 50 percent of Mexican brewer Modelo and 27 percent of China's Tsingtao Brewery.

As of March 31, Anheuser had about 714 million shares outstanding. (See more in the accompanying CNBC video.)

CNBC reported late Wednesday that InBev was moving closer to making an unsolicited bid for Anheuser-Busch.

InBev is based in Belgium and was formed by the 2004 merger of Belgium's Interbrew and Brazil's AmBev.

Embarking on a forced cross-border deal for an American icon of similar size can be difficult, but sources told CNBC that InBev executives believe there's a large enough constituency of frustrated shareholders at Anheuser-Busch to bolster their attempt to get a deal done.

InBev has spent much of the last few weeks trying to gain certainty that should it move ahead with a bid for Anheuser-Busch and that it can raise the financing necessary to back a bid.

- Reuters contributed to this report.

© 2009 CNBC