Anheuser-Busch InBev and the Justice Department said Wednesday that they were in talks to resolve antitrust concerns over the beer maker’s planned deal with Grupo Modelo, the maker of Corona beer and other brands.
The parties said they had jointly requested a temporary stay of an antitrust suit filed by the Justice Department while they work through the options.
Last year, Anheuser-Busch InBev had offered $20.1 billion to buy the rest of with Grupo Modelo that it did not already own, but the Justice Department filed suit on Jan. 31 seeking to block the deal on antitrust grounds. United States authorities had said the original Grupo Modelo merger proposal would increase Anheuser-Busch InBev’s control of the American beer marke, enabling it to raise prices while reducing choice for local consumers.
Grupo Modelo is the third-largest beer company in the United States. Anheuser-Busch InBev is the largest, ahead of MillerCoors.
In response, Anheuser-Busch InBev last week offered broad concessions, saying it would sell the rights to Corona and other Grupo Modelo brands in the United States to Constellation Brands, one of the world’s largest wine companies, for $2.9 billion. The new agreement would also include the sale of a brewery close to the United States-Mexico border that is owned by Grupo Modelo, as well as the perpetual licensing rights to Grupo Modelo’s brands in the United States.
Despite robust competition from microbrewers and other b! rands, analysts say that the craft beer market makes up just 6 percent of beer sales.
The biggest in the market, Anheuser â€" brewer of Budweiser and Stella Artois â€" has raised its prices with regularity every year, with MillerCoors following suit, the Justice Department said.
In a statement on Wednesday, the companies involved in the talks and the Justice Department jointly requested a delay until March 19. Anheuser-Busch InBev and Modelo reiterated that the “revised transaction resolves the concerns raised†by the Justice Department’s antitrust suit.
