July 15 (Bloomberg) -- InBev NV may raise as much as $4.6 billion by selling Anheuser-Busch Cos.' theme-park and beer-can divisions to help pay off debt for its purchase of the U.S. brewer.

InBev, based in Leuven, Belgium, may get $2.9 billion for the theme parks and $1.7 billion for divisions that recycle beer containers and make cans and bottles, said Sachin Shah, a merger analyst at ICAP Securities Ltd. in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Selling the units, including the Busch Gardens and SeaWorld theme parks, will get Anheuser-Busch out of peripheral businesses and help pay for the Belgian company's $52 billion all-cash takeover of the St. Louis-based brewer. InBev is financing the deal, which split Anheuser's founding family, with $45 billion of debt and a stock sale.

``InBev is looking to be in the beer business and not necessarily in the family entertainment business,'' Shah said. ``One thing InBev has stated throughout this process is a desire to add working dollars back.''

Standard & Poor's said yesterday InBev is doubling its ``historic'' debt levels.

Anheuser-Busch fell 27 cents to $66.60 by 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. InBev, led by Chief Executive Officer Carlos Brito, declined 1.50 euros, or 3.5 percent, to 41.50 euros in Brussels trading.

`Diligent Review'

``InBev's decision will be based on a diligent review of the strategic and financial consequences of any divestment, with the goal of creating the best opportunities and value for all constituents,'' spokeswoman Gwendoline Ornigg said by e-mail.

Maureen Roth, an Anheuser-Busch spokeswoman, referred questions to InBev.

Anheuser-Busch opened its first theme park in Tampa, Florida, in 1959. The brewer now runs 10 sites across the U.S. and is expanding overseas, with four parks planned in Dubai. Busch Entertainment generated $1.3 billion of Anheuser's revenue last year, 7 percent of the total.

InBev, the maker of Stella Artois lager and Leffe Belgian ales, agreed yesterday to buy Anheuser-Busch for $70 a share. The acquisition makes InBev, already the world's largest brewer by sales, the biggest by amount of beer sold as well. The Belgian company won over Anheuser and the Busch family after sweetening its bid following a month of resistance.

Anheuser-Busch InBev

The purchase will give InBev half of the U.S. market, the industry's largest, as well as top-selling Bud Light and Budweiser. The combined company, to be called Anheuser-Busch InBev, will exceed $36 billion in annual revenue, 85 percent more than InBev's 2007 sales.

InBev's loans include $7 billion of funds for use until it sells ``non-core'' assets of both companies. The brewer also got commitments for as much as $9.8 billion in bridge financing while it considers the timing of a stock sale.

Carlos Laboy, an analyst with Credit Suisse Securities LLC, said that based on $70 a share, InBev paid 10 times enterprise value to Ebitda for Anheuser's theme-park division and 5 times its packaging plants' Ebitda. That would value the parks at about $4 billion and the can unit at $1.25 billion, based on ICAP's estimate of the units' Ebitda. Laboy didn't provide Ebitda estimates.

Shah calculated that InBev paid 7.3 times enterprise value to Ebitda for the theme parks and 6.8 times by the same measure for the packaging division.

Property Value

He said his ``conservative'' estimates don't include the value of the property the theme parks occupy or the parks' well- known brands. ICAP's analysts evaluate mergers and other special situations for hedge funds, arbitragers and others.

The company's Busch Properties Inc. unit also owns the Kingsmill Resort and Conference Center in Williamsburg, Virginia, which Shah said may be worth $200 million or more if sold.

Busch Entertainment accounted for $162.9 million in profit, or 7.7 percent of the total last year. The unit had a $4.7 million net loss in the fourth quarter.

Last month, Petercam SA analyst Kris Kippers estimated Anheuser's entertainment and packaging divisions might be sold for $4.4 billion. He said the parks were worth $2.9 billion.

Analysts may be overestimating the value of the parks by as much as 10 percent, said Tom Pirko, president of Bevmark LLC, a consulting firm in Buellton, California. He said higher fuel and food prices are making family vacations less affordable.

Businesses Losing Value

Higher costs for plastic and aluminum have cut profit margins in packaging, Pirko said. He said that for now Shah's $1.7 billion estimate for that business is ``pretty close.''

``Everyone knows that the trends are working against these businesses, so chances are they are just going to continue to decelerate in value,'' Pirko said.

The packaging division's Metal Container Corp. makes cans and lids for both Anheuser and soft-drink companies, while another arm, Eagle Packaging Inc., makes liners for bottlecaps. Glass-bottle maker Longhorn Glass Corp. and a recycling business are also part of the packaging unit.

Brito, a Brazilian, will become the combined company's CEO. He was groomed by three Brazilian bankers who built AmBev from a brewer they acquired in 1989. InBev took its current form when Interbrew SA bought AmBev in an $11 billion acquisition.

Through 20 years of acquisitions, InBev expanded from family-owned Flemish beers to surpass Anheuser-Busch in sales while dominating Latin America.

The transaction, the biggest cash takeover on record, was helped by the dollar's 13 percent decline against the euro in the past year.

InBev said the purchase will be ``neutral'' to 2009 earnings per share and should boost profit from the following year. The company expects cost savings of $1.5 billion annually by 2010, and it will keep all of Anheuser's U.S. breweries open.

To contact the reporters on this story: Duane D. Stanford at dstanford2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 15, 2008 16:28 EDT