Diageo relaunches bid for raising stake in United Spirits

London-based Diageo Plc has relaunched a bid to increase its stake in United Spirits (USL), making a $1.9 billion bet on rising incomes in a country where consumption of alcohol remains relatively low.

The world's largest spirits maker, which holds 28.8 per cent of USL and has management control, offered to buy shares at Rs 3,030 ($50.30), a premium of 18.5 per cent to their last closing price, sending the stock up by about 10 per cent.

If successful, Diageo would end up with 54.8 per cent of India's largest spirits maker, which was previously controlled by tycoon Vijay Mallya, who has shed assets under heavy debt and the collapse of his Kingfisher Airlines.

He remains chairman of USL.

Last year, Diageo completed the purchase of its existing stake in USL, settling with considerably less than it had sought after a 2012 tender offer failed when it opted not to lift its offer price despite a surge in United Sprits shares.

"We do think that it will be a successful transaction," Deirdre Mahlan, chief financial officer of Diageo, told Reuters on Tuesday. "This price is also at an attractive premium to the market price and we believe that it creates a unique opportunity for investors to be able to monetise their investments."

Diageo, the maker of Johnnie Walker Scotch and Smirnoff vodka, controls USL through its holding and a shareholder agreement, and the tender offer is unlikely to result in any management changes, Mahlan said.

Diageo intends to keep USL listed in India even if its offer is successful. The new offer will be launched in June, the statement said. JM Financial and HSBC Holdings are arranging the Diageo offer.

If fully subscribed, the offer would be at a 38 times multiple of USL' consolidated EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) for the year ended March 2013 and the investment would lift Diageo's earnings on a per-share basis in the year ending June 30, 2016.

Mallya's UB Group owned 10.46 per cent of USL at the end of December. A spokesman for the group declined to comment.

Despite an Indian economy growing at its slowest in a decade, global companies have continued to invest in the long-term potential of consumer spending in the country. Last week, UK telecoms giant Vodafone Group Plc bought the remaining 11 per cent in its Indian unit.

Two-thirds of Indians do not drink alcohol at all, often for religious or cultural reasons, but rapid urbanisation, a young population and a fast-growing middle class are changing consumption habits.

Alcoholic beverage sales in Asia's third-largest economy are forecast by Euromonitor to rise up to 8 per cent a year by volume through 2017.

(Reuters)