Mexico’s FEMSA launches second 3 billion euro sale of Heineken shares

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican bottler FEMSA on Tuesday offered 3.3 billion euros ($3.63 billion) worth of its shares in Heineken, the second large offering in its divestment of holdings in the Dutch brewer.

The shares are equivalent to a stake of about 5.9% in Grupo Heineken, the Mexican company said in a statement. FEMSA announced in February an offering of around 3 billion euros worth of common shares in Heineken N.V. and Heineken Holding N.V, after saying it would sell its 14% stake in the European company over the next three years.

Filings later showed FEMSA had sold some of the shares. Heineken bought around 1 billion euros of the shares across both of its entities, while American tycoon Bill Gates bought 10.8 million shares – or a 3.76% stake – in the Dutch beverage giant from FEMSA.

FEMSA also announced Tuesday a simultaneous offer of up to 250 million euros of bonds exchangeable for shares of the Dutch brewer due in 2026.

The new bonds “will be consolidated and form a single series” with the ones issued in February for around 500 million euros at a rate of 2.625% and maturing within two years, it said.FEMSA’s shares on the Mexican stock market fell 0.26% after the announcement, after an initial 0.04% gain. They still outperformed the main Mexican stock index which fell 1.4% on Tuesday.

($1 = 0.9084 euros)

 

(Reporting by Raul Cortes; Writing by Isabel Woodford; Editing by Richard Chang)