InBev nominees to Bud board bring deal experience

By Martha Graybow

NEW YORK (Reuters) - InBev INTB.BR has assembled a team of U.S. business leaders with varied experience in corporate buyouts in a bid to replace the board of Anheuser-Busch (BUD.N) with directors more disposed to doing a deal.

The Belgian brewer on Monday unveiled a slate of proposed board nominees including several retired chief executives and chief financial officers of big companies -- as well as the uncle of Anheuser's CEO, who said he supports negotiating with InBev. It hopes to unseat the entire 13-member Anheuser board.

InBev's roster of nominees has solid credentials, said Jill Fisch, a law professor and corporate governance expert at Fordham University in New York.

"I think it's the right kind of board," she said. It includes "people who have no reason to be beholden to InBev and who are capable of exercising independent judgment."

Anheuser, which was not immediately available for comment, last month rejected InBev's $46.3 billion (234.2 billion pounds) cash bid as inadequate and said the St. Louis-based maker of Budweiser and Michelob beer was better off alone.

Some critics have groused that the board should have entertained the InBev offer and complain the current board is unwilling to stand against the Busch family, which has run the company for generations but does not hold a controlling stake.

For its slate, InBev recruited Larry Yost, 70, former chairman and CEO of auto parts maker ArvinMeritor (ARM.N). He engineered the merger in 2000 of Meritor Automotive and Arvin Industries and later launched an unsuccessful $2.7 billion takeover bid for rival Dana Corp (DAN.N).

Another nominee is James Healey, 67, former CFO of Nabisco Group Holdings Corp, which had been the majority owner of biscuit and cracker maker Nabisco Holdings Corp. He was part of the team that sold the parent company to R.J. Reynolds after Nabisco Holdings was sold to Kraft Foods in 2000.