urbanSTL

yeah, my pessimistic side is making me think this museum is just an attempt to build some sort of local public goodwill and nostalgia before more jobs are slowly moved out

AB InBev’s hard-nosed kings of beer

"Working for the world’s largest brewer is not to everybody’s taste — and that is fine with Carlos Brito, Anheuser-Busch InBev’s chief executive.
After Anheuser-Busch, owner of Budweiser, agreed to be taken over by InBev in 2008, Mr Brito and his InBev colleagues arrived at the US group’s St Louis headquarters within 24 hours to start shaking up its comfortable way of working and to assess which senior people would fit in. “In any company, there’s 20 per cent that lead, 70 per cent that follow and 10 per cent that do nothing,” Mr Brito recalls. “So the 10 per cent, of course, you need to get rid of . . . They’re always unhappy anyway and complaining.”"

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d6029592-0eb9 ... tml#slide0

In 2008, after the InBev team had done its triage of the Anheuser-Busch management, Mr Brito says he “changed the whole first tier . . . Some were too rich to care, some were too old to work, some wouldn’t fit the culture anyway”

So...he just publicly admitted to firing people based on age?

I wonder if 'fit the culture' means 'were women'.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6a227754-110f ... z3eYMNVLFg

Interesting read....Nothing new really....

The story from the Post:

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... d0eef.html

The whole thing with subsidiaries and joint ventures just confuses me. MillerCoors, the joint venture between SABMiller and Molson Coors is headquartered in Chicago, and I believe they're responsible for the handling of the Miller brand(s) and Coors brand(s) in the United States.

Miller itself is in Milwaukee, but does it qualify as the NA HQ of SABMiller? I don't know. Like I said, it all confuses me.

As I understand it, SAB bought Miller in 2002. They formed SABMiller. Then, in order to avoid anti-trust issues in the US, in 2007 Molson-Coors joined Miller & formed MillerCoors, a joint venture based in Chicago, run by Pete Coors & Leo Kiely of Molson. After that is when I get confused. I'm not sure how this JV is going to last. I would assume, it will end if INBEV gets Miller. I've heard they'll likely no longer be involved with Coors, in order to satisfy anti-trust regulators. I would think they'll have to do more, but who knows. Maybe divest Labatt or other brands. They'd have way too much marketshare, I'd guess.

Yeah, it does sound that at the very least, AB-InBev-SABMiller would have to divest themselves of MillerCoors, likely with a sale to Molson Coors.

So basically AB-InBev-Miller would no longer have any vested interest in the American portion of Miller.

If I understand right. And I likely don't. But I think that's a GENERAL grasp on things.

And to your point, I have no idea if that would be enough to satisfy anti-trust claims or not.

stlhistory wrote:^^For what it's worth, SABMiller's North America HQ is in Chicago. If SABMiller and ABInBev were to merge, I wouldn't be surprised if Chicago became North American HQ. ABInBev is already moving marketing and other stuff to Chicago.

From Aug. 2014 STLtoday article:

Adam Oakley, vice president of import, craft and specialty brands and the “high-end marketing team” he heads in St. Louis will relocate to Chicago “over time,” A-B InBev said. The company did not specify the number of jobs that will be moved. Oakley will report to Felipe Szpigel, the vice president in charge of the high-end business unit. Szpigel previously was A-B InBev's vice president of trade marketing, in New York.

Ugh. I think you're right. Now I'm going to go panic on Twitter.

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news ... 1442435238

Seems as if this would have little impact on AB and the North American operation in the near term, as they'd likely have to divest of their stake in Molson-Coors products. However, I would agree with you. I could see some of the corporate (non-brewing) related jobs being moved out of STL, over time, if this deal is done. They would find way too many synergies. I would guess the NYC office would grow and likely be the global HQ of the brewing conglomerate.

William Finnie, an adjunct professor of strategy at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, notes that A-B InBev would likely need to divest SABMiller’s stake in MolsonCoors — seller of Miller and Coors brands and the second-largest player in U.S. beer by market share — to get the deal by antitrust regulators. Without the divestment, a combined A-B InBev and SABMiller would control 70 percent of the U.S. market, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights.

I would assume there are many SABMIller execs contacting their tax and financial advisors in anticipation for their windfall.

So we let the Cubs beat us but in return we get to keep the North American HQ of the new company instead of Chicago? deal Chicago?

^If we only had a real hub/international airport!

Unfortunately, I would not be shocked to see the combined company based in NYC. Going to be very weird if Miller products end up in the AB 'museum' areas before the tour. Can you imagine if Miller High Life or other products, were made in STL....Just crazy!

ABI probably has a lot of open office space in their office tower. Maybe that could persuade the cost cutting Brazilians, to locate here. Then again, they'd have to weigh the cost of travel into a regional hub, versus travel into a true international airport. I'd have to say, it doesn't look good for us. ABI has a history of shipping jobs out of here, to places like NYC & Chicago. Guess we'll see.

Considering ABI will be stuck paying a $3 Billion fee to SABMiller if not approved by regulators or by shareholders, I would assume they are confident it will get passed. They will have to divest in some brands and likely work out some arrangement like they have with Constellation, distributing Corona in the US. I would guess Brito and his band of bandits will find a way to get this approved.

DogtownBnR wrote:They will have to divest in some brands

Makes me hope they spin-off some of the redundant brands into a new company here in St. Louis.

There's a ton of overlap with the core brands: Bud -> Miller, Busch -> High Life, Natural -> Milwaukee's Best (perhaps Billy Busch should trade in his Kreftig aspirations and just try and buy back the family brand). And plenty of non-core brands with limited market-share that seem readily divestible: Michelob, Land Shark, Rolling Rock.

Oddly, SABMiller owns this brand, which apparently is one of the most popular beers in Botswana: