Buffett backs InBev bid, Belgian newspaper says

Paul, I never connected those two ideas. First of all ,I believe InBev is losing customers in many foreign individual markets where they have taken over. Secondly, I don’t know if InBev is cooking their books or not. But I think the U.S. government has an obligation to see if InBev’s books are on the up and up. I would think they have incurred a lot of debt with all these billion dollar aqcuisitions. Are these debts transparent? That is all I’m saying.

to kdunlap: it is common knowledge that grant’s farm is leased by the brewery;however, all salaries, benefits and perks are handled by the brewery not the trust or the family. since it generates only goodwill,not profit, it most assuredly would close–unless you pick up the tab. frank

InBev, nor any other company, would pay a premium for the brewing assets and then close them down. Same for the value of the A-B brands. Labor may be squeezed over time, but A-B is likely to do the same since beer consumption is on a slow but measureable decline. Certain local philanthropic work that A-B does may go away. Remember that A-B has purchased major portions of Modelo and Tsing-Tao over the last few years, demonstrating a similar strategy as InBev. Now the shoe is on the other foot. A-B is one of the savviest marketing enterprises in American history, and InBev would be foolish to change that after borrowing so heavily. Rest, easy St. Louis.

John–I haven’t seen any data that backs up your assertion that InBev is losing customers in foreign markets. As best I can tell from their annual report and their financial statements, they appear to be doing quite well around the world except for in one of their bases–Western Europe. They have real issues with Stella Artios

InBev is a company thatis required to file financial statements in Europe under IAS. They are held to rigorous disclosure standards and are audited by a major accounting firm. There is little reason to suspect they are committing major accounting fraud.

Their financial statements seem very open and honest about the fact that they had just over 5 billion Euros of interest bearing debt as of December 2007.

I don’t believe the government should waste the taxpayers’ dollars looking for nonexistent hidden debt.

A little light reading for you on InBev’s Promise keeping record:

http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&ID=3225&view_records=1&ww=1&en=1

The Family, led by ABIV, will sell. He’s a greedy man. The that this is happening is inherent when moving from a privately held business to a publicly traded one. The desire behind a move to this position is to capitalize on the (hopefully ever upwardly) increasing value of the stock, thus increasing one’s wealth. The problem arises when you lose control of the majority of public stock…

Also, did you know that when he built his estate in St Charles county, instead of returning (or better yet - donating!) the unused lumber that was used for the finish carpentry - HE HAD IT BURNED! Thousands of $$$ up in smoke.

zuccarel- I agree with everything you said and it has nothing to do with what I said. I’m not sure A-B will stop advertising and forgive me if I don’t lose too much sleep for the one-trick-pony firms that only know how to promote beer. Maybe they can go to work for cigarette companies.

Billiecircus- Ditto. Except the ad hominem attack on me.

Bring on InBev…A shake up will be good for all. A good humbling for the St Louis employees. No more big fish in a small pond…:-)

Remember the story of the goose that laid the golden egg? We are warned not to worship false idols such as Mammon, yet we’ve fallen time and time again to such things, have looked for the “quick buck” at the expense of the long term, and where has it gotten us? A.B.’s shareholder may be offered 65 or 75 or 100 a share, but remember, that will not come in the form of cash; it will be in the form of stock. And if that stock should fall? Don’t forget all the things American Airlines promised when it bought TWA. How many of those came to fruition, for how long? Oh yes, things happened which changed the picture, but when do they not? So today some may support this for ideological reasons, others out of self-interest. Don’t be surprised, though, when a time comes to pay the price for being short-sighted. Perhaps we as Americans should have longer memories and realize all that glitters is not gold.

Maybe someone can start a second petition to Warren Buffett to explain to him about the American story. Money isn’t everything.