China's CRE to sell $3.6 billion of assets to parent, focus on beer

HONG KONG (Reuters) - State-owned conglomerate China Resources Enterprise (CRE) will focus on its beer business after agreeing to sell the remaining operations to its parent for about $3.6 billion (2.42 billion pounds), sparking a 50 percent rise in its shares.

CRE, which has a joint venture with SAB Miller (SAB.L) for its beer business, announced the plans on Tuesday to address the underperformance of its share price, with the company's non-beer businesses impacted by a slowdown in the Chinese economy.

It has been particularly struggling to turn around Tesco plc's (TSCO.L) ailing Chinese operations which it bought in 2013. CRE shares are down 41 percent since that deal and it posted its first annual loss for 2014 in more than two decades, hurt by the Tesco acquisition.

CRE, which is 51.78 percent owned by China Resources (Holdings), has operations from beverages to supermarket chains. The beer business, which includes China's No.1 selling brand Snow, accounted for about a fifth of CRE's 2014 fiscal year revenues and made a profit of HK$761 million (65.93 million pounds). Snow accounts for 24 percent of China's beer market, according to CRE officials.

Under the restructuring, the group will buy back 10 percent of CRE's outstanding shares for HK$12.70 each. CRE is also proposing an HK$11.50 per share special dividend from the sale proceeds.

The company will have the "singular strategic focus

in enhancing the competitive position of the beer business segment and delivering shareholder value", CRE said in a statement.

CRE shares rose as much as 63 percent as they resumed trading after a near three-week halt. By 0425 GMT, they were up 57 percent at HK$22.85, giving it a market value of about $7 billion. The benchmark Hang Seng (.HSI) was up 2.1 percent.

The CRE shake-up also comes after the Communist Party pledged to reform state-owned companies. Already, conglomerate CITIC Group has injected $36 billion worth of assets into its Hong Kong-listed unit. Similarly, oil refiner China Petroleum and Chemicals Corp (Sinopec) raised $17.5 billion by selling a 30 percent stake in its retail operations last year.

CRE will receive HK$13.58 billion in cash, with the balance to be paid by way of promissory notes, CRE said.

Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N) are advising parent China Resources (Holdings), while UBS (UBSG.VX) is the financial adviser to CRE.

(Reporting by Donny Kwok and Denny Thomas; Additional reporting by Elzio Barreto; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Muralikumar Anantharaman)