Anheuser-Busch sold; goes global?
Here’s something I never expected to see: iconic St. Louis and American company Anheuser-Busch has agreed to be purchased by European based InBev for $70 per share. The biggest maker of beer in the United States is selling to the Belgium based maker of Stella Artois and Becks. Why? I have no idea. I’d never even heard of Stella Artois till I moved to Hong Kong where it’s a moderately popular brand of beer.
But why is AB selling in the first place? Their stock prices are as high as they were years ago which indicates no serious problems. Is the rising gas costs hurting them that much? I doubt it since they use all 3rd party shippers. So why is AB selling?
They say that all the breweries will remain open and that St. Louis will remain as the world headquarters of the AB brand, but it will be run and owned by Brazilian management in Belgium. I’m still waiting to hear of some nefarious plot and the appearance of James Bond to put a stop to their insidious plans or world domination by mind control drugs in the beer. It would make more sense that way.
I wonder if I still have a job tomorrow…
I was wondering the same thing. Although it’s not approved by the government and all that crap so I’d say you have a few weeks left at least.
Why? August Busch IV. Traitor. May as well run for president, he’d probably get elected.
We have AB applicants up the wahoo at work looking for jobs. I’m glad I got out while I could.
This is going to suck for the STL economy. Expect the housing market here to really crash and the job market to pretty much die since it’s going to get flooded with IT people (particularly contractors). I’m pretty sure it means the end of Grant’s Farm as well.
AB sold because that’s how we do business in the US: make as much money as possible for the shareholders in the short term and screw any long term view.
I’m Canadian so yeah…”The Beer is the Life.” I remember the public outrage when Coors and Molson decided to sleep together back in 2005.
From what I’ve heard nothing is going to change for AB until the end of fiscal 2008 at the earliest because the paperwork won’t be through til then. There is a Vote pending on the purchase via the Shareholders but that’s more of a formality than anything.
I don’t know much about the current AB Board of Directors but I hope they get a nice severance package.
The Board
of Directors of the combined company will be comprised of the existing directors of the
InBev Board, Anheuser-Busch President and CEO August Busch IV and one other current or
former director from the Anheuser-Busch Board.
Only August and a PlayerToBeNamedLater will be on the American “Board” of Directors. Can you really call it a Board if there are only two people on it? Maybe it’s a Stick or a Plank then…
Things have been changing at AB for quite some time now. Re-orgs have been going on for at least a couple of years I think so that employees have already been quite stressed. But that is corporate life I guess.
It’s been a long long time since I’ve worked at AB (like most IT people in St. Louis have at one time or another). My experiences there ranged from amazing to horrible but I don’t hold any ill will for that company.
It’s very disappointing to be reading about this and to think of the changes that will be coming soon. The brewery and surrounding campus are not the only employment locations in St. Louis or at least last I knew. There’s a huge set of offices downtown and in Sunset Hills as well as various other locations.
I hope that this isn’t the end of St. Louis, but it’s a downward spiral that has been coming to something like this for a long time now. I only hope that the housing market crashes even more before we get ready to buy a new house.
Add to this horrible news, the layoffs at the ford plant and the closing of the Chrysler plant. American Airlines is trying like crazy to downsize their operations in STL.
I think St. Louis is done for. Time to get out. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next bit of bad news is the announcement of the Rams leaving for a bigger city.
I knew the Chrysler plant was having trouble and heard it was down to one shift. So is it actually closing down now? If so that is really bad.
I’m not surprised about layoffs at the Ford plant. That plant was on the verge of being closed years ago and the government stepped in to try and help keep it open. That was scary then.
So Sad.