June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Trading in options to buy Anheuser- Busch Cos. shares surged to a record after the New York Post reported activist investor William Ackman may buy a stake in the world's second-largest brewer.

Ackman, general partner of Pershing Square Capital Management who lobbied for change at Wendy's International Inc. and McDonald's Corp., has raised $2 billion to buy a stake in a company that has a market value of $30 billion to $40 billion, the Post reported today. The target may be Anheuser-Busch, Starwood Hotels & Resources Worldwide Inc., Marriott International Inc. or Kraft Foods Inc., the Post said.

Anheuser-Busch Chief Executive Officer August Busch IV has said that the St. Louis-based brewer is too dependent on the U.S., where growth has slowed. The company took over distribution of InBev NV's European beers such as Bass and Stella Artois and promoted brews including Beach Bum Blonde Ale to woo drinkers.

``Sometimes you get a management that falls asleep and things get off track, but Anheuser isn't in that category,'' said Marvin Roffman, president of Roffman Miller Associates in Philadelphia. He manages $400 million including Anheuser-Busch shares. ``There are a lot of small things happening at Anheuser that are meaningful in the long run.''

Record Volume

The number of call-options traded in Anheuser-Busch increased to a record 73,626 as of 4 p.m. in New York. That's a ninefold increase from the average of 7,563 during the previous 20 trading sessions. Call options give investors the right, without the obligation, to buy shares of a company at a specified price by a given date.

Call trading also spiked yesterday and May 31 -- before the New York Post article -- with more than 23,000 contracts changing hands both days. Volume hadn't been that high since Feb. 15.

Shares of Anheuser-Busch climbed 51 cents, or 1 percent, to $53.66 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Earlier, the stock jumped 3.8 percent, the biggest gain since April 2006.

Ackman declined to comment on the newspaper's report when contacted by Bloomberg News. Anheuser-Busch also declined to speak about it, Chief Financial Officer Randolph Baker said in a statement.

Billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is the second-largest investor in Anheuser-Busch, with 35.6 million shares, or 4.7 percent of outstanding stock, as of March. Barclay's Plc is the biggest stakeholder, with 39.6 million shares.

Three Divisions

According to the Post, Ackman will invest in a company that has three divisions, each of which is depressed in value. Anheuser-Busch's businesses include beer, entertainment parks and packaging, and it has a market value of $40.8 billion.

Anheuser-Busch had sales of $15.7 billion last year, almost 80 percent of it from beer. The company gets about 7.5 percent of revenue from the theme parks unit that includes Busch Gardens and SeaWorld, and about 11 percent comes from its packaging unit that makes aluminum cans for its own beer and soft drinks produced by PepsiCo Inc. bottlers.

Beer volume in the U.S. rose 1.2 percent last year, after dropping 1.8 percent in 2005 when price cuts failed to spur higher demand as drinkers switched to liquor, wine and imported ales. U.S. volume increased 2.1 percent in 2002. Anheuser-Busch lost its spot as the world's biggest brewer last year when Belgium's InBev surpassed it in revenue.

`Better Positioned'

Busch, who took over as CEO in December, has increased overseas investments in countries such as China, where the company plans to build a new brewery, and it has created ventures to expand in India and Russia.

Domestically, the company in February began importing InBev's European brands such as Bass and Stella Artois to take advantage of demand for overseas brews, and it bought Rolling Rock from InBev to expand the small-batch beer beyond the Northeast U.S.

``Anheuser-Busch is much better positioned for growth than we were just eight months ago,'' Busch said at an investor conference in May.

Last Year, Ackman and billionaire Nelson Peltz persuaded Wendy's to spin off its Tim Hortons unit and sell its Baja Fresh division. Ackman no longer owns shares of the third-largest U.S. hamburger chain, which put itself up for sale in April.

To contact the reporters on this story: Josh Fineman in New York at jfineman@bloomberg.net; Mary Jane Credeur in Atlanta at mcredeur@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 5, 2007 16:17 EDT