AB InBev’s hard-to-swallow $100bn hangover
The world’s biggest brewer is to re-base its payout to much-reduced €1.80 a share this year — but it had to be done
AB-InBev has cut its dividend. This will naturally have investors looking to drown their sorrows, but it was the right thing to do, nonetheless. The world’s biggest brewer said on Thursday that it would re-base its payout to €1.80 a share, this year, a mighty cut from the €3.60 in 2017. It had little choice. Before the reduction, analysts at Bernstein had forecast that net debt at the end of this year would be 4.6 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (ebitda). That’s way above the three times at which investors start to get jittery. AB-InBev’s own goal is to bring net debt down to about twice annual earnings. The big question is whether it’s gone far enough. Finance director Felipe Dutra says halving the dividend will save about $4bn a year, all of which will be used to cut borrowings. The revised payout will be covered more comfortably by earnings. But it will make only a modest dent in the net debt, which was an eye-watering $108.8bn at June 30 – a...
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