Published: November 18 2008 20:55 | Last updated: November 18 2008 20:55

InBev completed its $52bn purchase of Anheuser-Busch on Tuesday, making it the world's largest brewer and marking a rare victory for jittery dealmakers and investors as other proposed merger transactions continue to fall apart.

With an eye toward the credit crunch - which was already an issue when InBev and Anheuser cut their deal in July - InBev bound Anheuser and its bank lenders to relatively air-tight agreements. People close to the groups said the lack of escape routes for the parties involved helped push the deal across the finish line.

"It was constructed to withstand whatever would come," one person close to the matter said. "Twenty-three banks funded, and they funded right on time. I think that means something."

The deal ranks as the largest completed merger this year.

The new company, called Anheuser-Busch InBev, will have six months to complete a $9.8bn rights offering that it plans to use to help fund the transaction. It had postponed the offering in mid-October because of turmoil in the equity markets.

InBev has also pledged to raise $7bn over the course of the next year by divesting assets. While InBev may try to sell Budweiser brewer Anheuser's entertainment operations, as many expect, it may also entertain the sale of a significantly wider range of assets.

"There will be a broader list, rather than a narrow set of candidates, which also means that they can be prize assets," one person close to the companies said. "Getting the Anheuser deal done is a dream, so we're going to have to sell some things. I think there's going to have to be some acceptance of that, by definition."

Meanwhile, the scrap heap of broken deals has continued to pile higher over the past week, after October brought the largest number of dropped deals on record.

Novolipetsk, the Russian steel maker, on Friday terminated its $3.53bn agreement to buy John Maneely, a steel tubing maker owned by Carlyle Group.

Cliffs Natural Resources, an iron ore provider, and Alpha Natural Resources, a coal miner, scrapped their proposed merger on Monday after labouring for months to convince shareholders that the deal was their best strategic option.