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Scott Jagow: The maker of Stella Artois beer is making its run at Budweiser. Today, the Belgian company InBev launched a gigantic bid — $46 billion for Anheuser-Busch. Our European correspondent, Stephen Beard, has more.

Stephen Beard: InBev, which makes Stella Artois, is offering $46.9 billion for Anheuser-Busch — in cash. InBev borrowed the money. In spite of the credit crunch, banks are still willing to lend for the right deal.

Anheuser-Busch says it’ll consider the offer. But analysts expect the company to reject it. It’s likely to get a pretty hostile reception in the brewer’s home state of Missouri.

Understandably so, says Scott Mueller of the Cass Business School. Most takeover deals involve big job losses:

Scott Mueller: The average deal has something of the order of 10 to 15 percent of the employees of the target company being fired. If you take those numbers, that would be huge, certainly back in St. Louis as well as other places in the United States where Anheuser-Busch has its operations.

InBev has tried to ease those fears. It says if the takeover goes ahead, it will keep the headquarters in St. Louis and that it has no plans to close down any American breweries.

In London, this is Stephen Beard for Marketplace.