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Anheuser-InBev Sells Labatt's US Business

The Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — Anheuser-Busch InBev said Friday it has completed its sale to a private equity group of the unit that imports Canada's Labatt beer into the United States.

The world's largest brewer had to sell that business to win antitrust approval for its $52 billion takeover of Anheuser-Busch last year.

Anheuser-Busch InBev said in a news release Friday it completed the sale of assets of InBev USA LLC — known as Labatt USA — to private equity group KPS Capital Partners.

Terms of the deal, which was first announced late last month, have not been disclosed.

The U.S. Department of Justice said in November it would approve Belgium-based InBev's takeover of Anheuser-Busch, but InBev had to sell the unit that imports Labatt to the U.S.

Regulators said the company would be too powerful in upstate New York, where Labatt Blue and Labatt Blue Light are popular and compete directly with Anheuser-Busch's brews Budweiser and Bud Light.

Without the sell-off condition, the Justice Department said the new company would control most of the beer sales in that region, which includes metropolitan Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, N.Y. The pairing could have led to higher prices, regulators said.

InBev, brewer of Stella Artois and Beck's, and Anheuser-Busch did not compete against each other in most other beer markets around the country.

The sale to KPS Capital Partners affects Labatt beer brewed in the U.S. and Canada solely for consumption in the U.S. It does not affect Labatt branded beer in Canada, the brewer said.