Topic: Growth Stocks

MOLSON COORS BREWING CO. $83 – New York symbol TAP

MOLSON COORS BREWING CO. $83 (New York symbol TAP; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 185.0 million; Market cap: $15.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 4.0; Dividend yield: 2.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.molson coors.com) jumped 20% in response to Anheuser-Busch InBev’s offer to buy rival brewer SABMiller plc.

In 2008, Molson Coors merged its U.S. brewing operations with those of SABMiller to form MillerCoors. Each company has a 50% voting interest in this joint venture, but SABMiller gets 58% of the profits, while Molson Coors gets 42%.

To satisfy competition regulators, a combined Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller would probably have to sell its stake in the MillerCoors joint venture.

Molson Coors has a right of first refusal over any sale and would probably buy SABMiller’s stake. This would cost around $10 billion, which is a high 74% of Molson Coors’s market cap.

Still, gaining control of MillerCoors would let the company realize more cost savings: since 2008, MillerCoors has saved roughly $1 billion by combining plants and distribution networks. Molson Coors could also offset all or part of the cost by selling part of the joint venture to another brewer.

Molson Coors is still a buy.

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