Heineken to Buy Femsa Beer Unit in $7.7 Billion Deal

The Amsterdam-based brewer will issue new shares to give Femsa a 20 percent stake in Heineken Group, the company said in a statement on its Web site today. Heineken rose as much as 6.7 percent in Amsterdam trading, the most since Aug. 26.

The acquisition gives Heineken one of only two beer makers in Mexico, the world’s fourth-most profitable market, and reduces the company’s reliance on slower-growing European markets. Heineken, which distributes Femsa beers including Dos Equis in the U.S., expects savings of 150 million euros a year by 2013 and said it will use the acquisition to sell Femsa brands in Europe and Heineken in Latin America.

“This looks like a very clever deal from Heineken’s point of view,” said Nomura International Plc analyst Ian Shackleton. “It potentially opens the door for the whole of the Americas, a door which appeared to have closed.”

The world’s largest brewers have spent the last decade snapping up assets outside of western Europe as beer consumption in the region slowed. Anheuser-Busch InBev NV’s predecessor, Interbrew SA, bought Cia. de Bebidas das Americas in 2004 to become Latin America’s biggest beermaker. SABMiller Plc acquired Bavaria SA the following year to expand in Colombia.