By Martinne Geller
LONDON (Reuters) - Brewer SABMiller (LONDON:SAB) Plc, facing an unsolicited $100 billion takeover offer from Anheuser-Busch InBev, announced an expanded cost-savings plan on Friday, aiming to show how much value it can generate in the next five years by going it alone.
The latest statement from the world's second-largest brewer was seen as an attempt to fetch a higher price than the 42.15 pound-per-share proposal it has already rejected as too low.
On a day the chief executives of both companies were meeting with SAB shareholders to plead their cases, SAB said it now expects to reach annualized cost savings of at least $1.05 billion by 2020. The prior target of its savings and efficiency program, announced in May 2014, was $500 million by 2018.
"They want a higher price and they're arguing for it," said Berenberg analyst Javier Gonzalez Lastra.
"It doesn't change much. I think most people think ABI could realize synergies of $2 billion or more," he said, within about three years of any deal closing.
AB InBev is renowned for its ruthless cost-cutting, austere culture and fat profit margins. Savings are the hallmark of the deals the Budweiser brewer has done over the years.
If SAB were swallowed by AB InBev, the latter would likely impose its more centralized and standardized operating structure, insiders have said.
SAB on Friday said it was already taking steps in that direction, with about 70 percent of its additional savings coming from procurement and the rest from manufacturing and distribution.
"We are continuing to remove duplication across markets, bringing specialist expertise in areas like procurement under one roof, and standardizing common processes," said Alan Clark, chief executive of the maker of beers including Peroni, Grolsch and Pilsner Urquell.
"It results in our markets being freed up to concentrate on what they do best -- growing revenue with local consumers and customers."
Clark is trying to counter loud messages delivered over the past two days by AB InBev CEO Carlos Brito, who has been urging investors to push SABMiller into takeover talks after it refused his advances three times.
Brito is to meet with investors in New York on Friday, after meetings in London on Thursday. Clark was also meeting shareholders on Friday.
SAB said AB InBev's latest $100 billion offer "very substantially undervalued" the company.