Interbrew's determination to be one of the key players in the global beer market was revealed this week when it admitted looking into the potential of taking over South African Breweries. But the City is sceptical it would be able to pull the deal off, or even whether it is worth doing. And the Belgian brewer is still suffering from the bloody nose it received from the UK competition authorities when it tried to buy its way to the top of the British brewing league by acquiring Bass. Nigel Popham at City analyst Teather Greenwood said: "The SAB deal is probably not very appealing to Interbrew investors because the South African operates in geographically unattractive areas. "Interbrew is trying to do things too fast. It overpaid for Bass and is having to sell it at a massive loss and it bought Beck's at 25% more than most people thought it was worth." He suggested there would be further brewing consolidation in the long term, but did not expect the deal to proceed. Interbrew has admitted only to carrying out a preliminary analysis of SAB as part of a routine annual review and said no approaches had been made. At the same time there is renewed interest in the Carling brewing business that Interbrew is being forced to sell. Constellation, the acquisitive US wine and spirits company which already owns Matthew Clark in the UK, is thought to be preparing a bid of £1.35bn. Until now the value of Carling had been reckoned at £1.2bn, but one City analyst said this is still early days and not all the bids are in'. Constellation has not commented on the speculation. {{NEWS }}

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