Japanese whiskey and beer producer Suntory Holdings Ltd. is moving into bourbon. The family-owned company agreed on Jan. 13 to pay $13.6 billion in cash for Beam Inc., which makes Jim Beam bourbon as well as Marker’s Mark and Knob Creek bourbon, Canadian Club whiskey and Courvoisier cognac. Suntory will pay $83.50 a share in stock for Beam, a 25 percent premium to the target’s closing price on Jan. 10, the last trading day before the deal was announced. The buyer will also assume $2.4 billion in Beam debt.
The deal would create one of the world’s largest liquor companies, and it caps the restructuring of Beam’s predecessor, Fortune Brands Inc. Under pressure from investors, the company sold its golf unit, Acushnet Co., for $1.23 billion to a group of buyers including Fila Korea Ltd. and Mirae Asset Private Equity in 2011, and later that year split into Beam Inc. and Fortune Brands Home & Security Inc., which now has a market capitalization of about $8 billion.
