urbanSTL

Maybe InBev will close or sell of one of the older/more inefficient/highest cost breweries? Just to put the Fear of God in the survivors and light a fire under their backsides to find other ways to cut costs. Just to make an example of someone?

That is a good possibility. I do not know the specifics, but they did close a Labatt's Brewery when they allegedly promised not to do so, after that acquisition. I can see Brito and his boys making an example of a brewery. I think that would put the fear of God in everyone.





In talking to my friends that work in the plant, the St. Louis operation has some of the most state of the art equipment in the world. However, that equipment is stored in some of the oldest, most inefficient, uncomfortable and historic of ABI's buildings. In one sense, the equipment is a good, but does the old building offset the benefits of the equipment. Hopefully, ABI will improve the STL operation in the future, not scale it down or close it. They have got to brew somewhere, but they do not have to do it here long term.

DOGTOWNB&R wrote: breweries to follow.

This good enuf for you?



Tuesday, January 6, 2009, 10:30am CST

A-B InBev to close London Budweiser brewery



http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/ ... ily21.html

So which tub are they going to use to brew the beer?

I wonder if INBEV would be bold enough to close an American Brewery.......

I made the mistake of posting my comment on Lager Heads first and will now be forced to read the mindless stltoday commenters. Well, I suppose no one is really forcing me.... As I'm sure you'll all agree, those stltoday, ALWAYS pessimistic commenters suck......holy sh*t I hate them. so so so dumb.



Anyway, my conjecture on the news:



1) NYC will soon be the HQ for ALL ABI operations.

2) Eventually, STL and Brussels will cease to exist as global/continental/regional decision centers and perhaps cease operations completely. ouch.



Why would ABI need STL with operations in NYC? Same continent.

Maybe because they can get direct flights to NYC and not st louis?

If the shoe were on the other foot (and I so wish it was), would A-B establish operations in Leuven or Brussels? Or even in London, Paris, etc., for that matter?

If they had a nice Gulfstream G-V that could touch almost anywhere in the word minus parts of the Far South East.



http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=&RAN ... MAP-STYLE=



It is a cool tool to see how far certain places are in the world from different airport. Places shaded in grey are out of reach.

SoulardX wrote:Anyway, my conjecture on the news:



1) NYC will soon be the HQ for ALL ABI operations.

2) Eventually, STL and Brussels will cease to exist as global/continental/regional decision centers and perhaps cease operations completely. ouch

Perhaps (1) could be correct, but somewhat inconsequential.



(2) - Huh? On what do you base this? They'll still need North American and EMEA divisions. Perhaps some consolidation, but that's all.

SoulardX wrote:Why would ABI need STL with operations in NYC? Same continent.

Because operations in St. Louis is far cheaper. And they've still gotta brew beer in the midwest. Don't think they're going to ship it from NYC, eh......

^ Correct. Panera operates in a similar matter. Major operations are here in St. Louis. Then their management team is in boston.

"Huh? On what do you base this? They'll still need North American and EMEA divisions. Perhaps some consolidation, but that's all."



Like I said originally, it's conjecture. I "base" it on nothing. I am merely trying to connect some dots. ABI just killed 89 jobs in Brussels to move them to NYC. Looks like most management jobs for ABI are now in NYC.



I don't believe the STL brewery itself could close, only that the decision making jobs for the Bud brands could go to NYC.

SoulardX wrote:Like I said originally, it's conjecture. I "base" it on nothing. I am merely trying to connect some dots. ABI just killed 89 jobs in Brussels to move them to NYC. Looks like most management jobs for ABI are now in NYC.



I don't believe the STL brewery itself could close, only that the decision making jobs for the Bud brands could go to NYC.

If you base it on nothing, there are no dots to connect. You jump to entirely too many conclusions based off incomplete information. Just because 89 jobs moved from Brussels to NYC doesn't mean that most ABI management jobs are now in NYC.



It makes more sense that NYC be the new corporate HQ for ABI with division headquarters in St. Louis and Belgium.

So, I admit right up front that my comments are "conjecture" and innov8ion lectures that I "jump to entirely too many conclusions based off incomplete information."



That's rich! Thank you for a circular conversation, writing out the very defintion of "conjecture," innov8ion!



If I say something is red, will innov8ion disagree saying, "No, that's red!"







Does ABI go NYSE now?

^ Heh, amusing. You said yourself you based it off of nothing. Conjecture implies you're basing it on something, but less than everything.

AB-Inbev now telling it's vendors they need to switch from Net 30 to Net 120. That is just huge and will really screw with cash flows for small businesses that supply the breweries. They sound like Wal-Mart back about 10 years ago.

^ Can you translate that for the layperson?

How often suppliers get paid.

dweebe wrote:

zink wrote:Maybe because they can get direct flights to NYC and not st louis?

A quick search on Expedia shows there are usually 7 daily non-stop flights from the New York City airports to Brussels: 2 from Newark and 5 from JFK. Plus there's 5 non-stops going from Brussels to New York.



How many non-stop flights are there from Lambert to any place in Europe? Zero.



Plus I assume high-end private jets can also make it from Belgium to New York non-stop.

I really doubt ease of air travel was a huge factor in any decision. AB has (and has had for a long time) at least two aircraft that can easily operate St. Louis to Belgium nonstop. There's also a G-IV that operates a very ABI-esque flight pattern that is managed by an third party management company.

ChrisInDownTown wrote:AB-Inbev now telling it's vendors they need to switch from Net 30 to Net 120. That is just huge and will really screw with cash flows for small businesses that supply the breweries. They sound like Wal-Mart back about 10 years ago.

Yikes! Really? That is huge for a small business. One of my customers recently went to 60 days, and even that hurts.