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Anheuser-Busch InBev seeks to raise over $9.8 billion in Hong Kong IPO

A mock bottle of an IPA beer with the logo reading IPO instead.
Illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios

Anheuser-Busch InBev disclosed that it will seek to raise upward of $9.8 billion in a Hong Kong IPO of its Asia-Pacific business.

Why it matters: This could become the year's largest IPO, topping the $8.1 billion raised in May by Uber. It also could give the unit an initial market cap of nearly $64 billion (around the same size as Heineken), and help AB InBev cut into a debt pile it built via the 2016 purchase of SABMiller.

The bottom line: "The company is counting on the region’s growth potential to draw interest in the shares as the beer business faces stagnating prospects elsewhere. AB InBev has already cornered the premium market in China and has been buying up local craft brands to reach fashionable millennials with a taste for more expensive brews," reports Bloomberg

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Beer