A bartender serves a beer produced by brewing company SAB Miller at a bar in Cape Town, September 16, 2015. SABMiller has rejected Anheuser-Busch InBev's approach about a takeover that would form a brewing colossus producing a third of the world's beer. A merged group would have a market value of around $275 billion (£177 billion) at current prices, and would combine AB InBev's dominance of Latin America with SABMiller's dominance in Africa, both fast-growing markets, as well as their breweries in Asia. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

Hostile bid for SABMiller – Employees to keep the goldmine or just the shaft?

A friend who works at SABMiller has been looking at other options. Not aggressively. But he is nervous about a proposed takeover by his company's great competitor, Anheuser Busch Inbev

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12 Oct 2015, 3:30 am

A friend who works at SABMiller has been looking at other options. Not aggressively. But he is nervous about a proposed takeover by his company's great competitor, Anheuser Busch Inbev. Such is the reputation of the tight-fisted, numbers-obsessed rival that if the hostile takeover bid succeeds he'd rather not stay.

Not that my pal is likely to have much choice in the matter. AB Inbev fits the description of the kind of acquisitive company Warren Buffett describes in this year's letter Berkshire shareholders: "a competitor salivating at the possibility of wringing synergies from the combining of the two companies. The buyer invariably contemplates getting rid of large numbers of the seller's associates, the very people who have helped build the business." Reminiscent, Buffett wrote, "of the old country song: 'She got the goldmine, I got the shaft."

SABMiller's top executives have been expecting this for some time.So will have set up its defences and certainly won't go down without a fight. Like the Springbok rugby team, this group of South Africans may prove to be most effective when their backs are against the wall. My friend, and most of his 70 000 SABMiller colleagues, will sure be hoping so.

Warren Buffett