Anheuser-Busch stock: Cash is a good thing

— -- A: Whether you like it or not, one of the USA's best-known brewers is about to be owned by a foreign company.

Anheuser-Busch agreed to be bought by Europe's InBev for $52 billion or $70 a share in cash. The companies say combining will better equip them to take on global challenges and expand. The deal awaits several approvals before being completed. You can expect to see more foreign companies buy U.S. firms as long as the dollar remains weak.

Why is InBev offering cash instead of stock? A number of factors go into deciding how to pay for a deal. It might be that InBev doesn't want dilute its share price by issuing a lot of new stock. A-B has almost 720 million shares outstanding; InBev had only 616 million as of June 30.

Perhaps the company has cash it wants to put to use or can tap lines of credit at favorable terms. Or maybe Anheuser's board of directors demanded cash.

Finally, there could have been complications since most of Anheuser's shareholders are in the U.S., receiving shares that trade on the Euronext exchange (under ticker INB) might raise issues.

For individual investors, it's really a wash. If you want to own InBev after the transaction, there's nothing to stop you from buying the stock. The biggest downside is that you may owe capital gains taxes on the transaction, which will take a bite out of how much money you can shift to your InBev investment. Generally, stock deals are more favorable for investors when it comes to taxes.

But stock deals can have their own problems. Sometimes, the value of the buyout may decline between the time the offer was made and when it is completed. That generally occurs if shares of the acquiring company fall in value.

Matt Krantz is a financial markets reporter at USA TODAY and author of Investing Online for Dummies. He answers a different reader question every weekday in his Ask Matt column at money.usatoday.com. To submit a question, e-mail Matt at mkrantz@usatoday.com. Click here to see previous Ask Matt columns.