InBev went to $70 bucks a share and now it is official. AB has agreed to be bought by InBev. As I stated before, I am sure most of you don't care, but I've enjoyed watching this unfold.
This stirred up some pretty serious emotions in some people, and a website was even set up for people to sign a petition, and as I write this about 70,000 people have signed up. I hope those people that are angry about this will look to their own backyards to drink local and American again if that is what their main problem was in the first place.
Either way, I won't post about this anymore.
Cheers!
Matt
7 comments:
This kind of makes me sad. I always viewed AB as the most respectable of the macros (not including Sam Adams). It's hard not to view this as anything but them putting money before anything else. Not that money isn't a very important part of the business, but it should follow a good product, not be the primary concern.
I guess that's the defining difference between a macrobrewery and a microbrewery. Sigh.
I am rather impartial to be honest about it.
As least from what I've seen InBev seems to do a pretty good job with their products, so I would imagine they are not going to mess to much with the number one selling brand in the world. I still find it a staggering statistic that close to 1 of every 2 beer sold in America is a AB product. Even though I am not a fan of most AB's beer, they do work damn hard with their styles and their consistency is amazing. We will see what happens. I also assume the deal comes with the rice fields that AB owns in Arkansas.
Score another one for globalization...
I'm pretty much with you on this one, Matt. This makes Sam Adams the largest American-owned brewery now, doesn't it? Who would have thought that that would ever happen?
Chalk up another one for synergy!
Actually I am pretty sure Pabst Brewing is now the largest American owned brewery.. except they don't own any physical breweries anymore. But by volume sold Pabst was 4th in the country with around 8 million barrels sold last year.
As to this sell-out, I am kind of amused how fast things went from 'this isn't going to happen' to 'SOLD!' in just $5 per share. It will be interesting to see how things shape up. Just a couple years ago InBev had major problems when they tried to close the original Hoegaarden brewery and wound up with a massive strike. So there is possibilities for things to get interesting in the future if they attempt some cost cutting and start here first.
Did you read the NYTimes article about it?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/us/16beer.html?dbk
The workers at the brewery really feel the pains.
nice hand
Bathmate
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