After a sometimes heated four-month takeover battle,the Foster's board has agreed to sell the business - which owns VB,Australia's biggest-selling beer,and other popular brands such as Crown,Cascade and Carlton Draught - to Anglo-South African brewer SABMiller.
Foster's chief executive John Pollaers said last night his SABMiller counterpart,Graham Mackay,had expressed a strong commitment to Foster's Australian heritage.
''I spoke to Graham yesterday and we both share a common commitment to this company and its people,''Mr Pollaers toldThe Age.
But SABMiller,one of the world's biggest brewers,with operations on six continents,could not,at this stage,promise to maintain Foster's headquarters in Melbourne or its Abbotsford plant,which has been making beer for more than 100 years.
Foster's origins date to 1854,only 19 years after Melbourne was founded by European colonists,when VB was first brewed in the city by the Victoria Brewery.
The company - which under the leadership of 1980s entrepreneur John Elliott was going to''Fosterise the world''- will now itself be swallowed up,with SABMiller to pay investors $5.5325 a share for control of Foster's,giving the company a value of about $12.3 billion.