Anheuser-Busch InBev, the newly merged global brewer, has revived its $9.8 billion (£6.5 billion) rights issue after offering shares at a 69 percent discount to Friday's close.

The equity issue, which will part-fund InBev's recently completed $52 billion acquisition of Anheuser-Busch, was put on hold last month as the Belgian brewer cited “unprecedented volatility in the global capital markets”.

Analysts said the speed with which it had resurrected the issue indicated that it believed that markets could worsen. Kristof Degraeve, at SG Private Banking, said: “The group said it would wait until financial markets had stabilised before launching the rights issue. I don't think we can say that markets have stabilised.”

The company, which is listed on the Euronext Brussels market, is issuing 986.2 million shares to shareholders at €6.45 per share. The price is a 69 per cent discount to Friday's closing price of €20.60, itself down 16 per cent on the day amid rumours of the move. In euro terms, the total size of the new issue is €6.36 billion, as InBev had pre-hedged its euro/dollar exposure at $1.5409, compared with the present rate of about $1.26.

The Belgian and Brazilian families who between them speak for about 60 per cent of ABInBev, will invest €2.8 billion (£2.4 billion) — more than double the sum of €1.2 billion that they were to have put in under the orginal equity issue. The Belgian families will take up rights worth about €1.3 billion, while selling their remaining rights, worth €1.2 billion, through a so-called accelerated bookbuilding process. The Brazilians, who acquired their holding in the company four years ago by selling AmBev to Interbrew to create InBev, will invest €1.5 billion.

The completion of the deeply discounted rights issue will allow ABInBev to pay off a $9.8 billion bridging loan taken out after last month's postponement. The bridge was taken out alongside a $45 billion debt facility from a consortium of international banks.

Carlos Brito, ABInBev's chief executive, has promised to raise a further $7 billion within the next 12 months by selling off non-core businesses, likely to include Anheuser-Busch's visitor attractions business.

Mr Brito has vowed to turn Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser brand into a “global flagship brand” and has said that the deal should yield annual cost synergies of at least $1.5 billion within three years.

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