Is the A-B board stalling, holding out or tilting at windmills?
Today the Anheuser-Busch board of directors rejected a bid by InBev to buy the St. Louis brewer for $65 a share. The board said the offer undervalued A-B. According to our story, board chairman Patrick Stokes said:
The proposed price does not reflect the strength of Anheuser-Busch’s global, iconic brands Bud Light and Budweiser, the top two selling beer brands in the world, with Budweiser selling in more than 80 countries today.
One might look at the board’s stance this way: We might be willing to sell the company — but not at the price you offered.
So is the board holding out for a better price? Or is it sincerely resisting a takeover attempt by the Belgium brewer? Is that a fruitful effort by A-B’s board? Or, realistically, is there anything they can really do to stop a takeover?
Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
KEEP AMERICAN BEER AMERICAN.
A-B is American in the same vein as John Wayne. Legendary!
Never give in A-B!
Sure, they have not been the most aggressive in the last decade, but this may give them the wakeup call they needed.
I hope they never sell, I don’t want to ever see it - for St.Louis if nothing else.
Long Live A-B, i can close my eyes and smell the brewery right - ah, the smell of St. Louis - I Love it!
Can you imagine what Augie Jr. would have done?
First of all, Busch and Busch Light are not regional beers, they’re nationwide. Nor is Pabst Blue Ribbon, which is only a name and is contract brewed. Milwaukee’s Best is sold nationwide by Miller, which, my friends, was bought by South African Brewery several years ago, renaming itself SABMiller, right before Molson of Canada swallowed up Coors, to become MolsonCoors. So your Coors Light or Miller Lite are all foreign owned already. The talk by some of you that you’ll boycott Budweiser is just silly.
Why not everyone buy only Budweiser products so the stock shoots up so A-B is too expensive? You’ll be buying from the only large American brewrey that’s still American owned, helping local jobs at the STL brewery and the local distributors, and to boot we show those damn Belgians who’s boss. A-B’s share in the USA is under 50%, so if everyone went on a “buy only A-B” kick their sales would double and their stock would probably go to $100. Now that’s what I call a darn good idea that’s a win-win-win, for St. Louis, for A-B shareholders, and for the good ol’ USA!
OMG, James, you came up with the best idea I’ve ever seen on here! Now who can argue with drinking ourselves out of trouble?!? In all seriousness, what you came up is a great idea. Why drink foreign owned Miller, the beer sucks anyway? If everyone truly supports A-B they’ll buy up 3 months worth of Bud Light this weekend and store it in their basement, and they’ll pledge never to drink Miller or Coors or import products again. I heard A-B makes some pretty good craft and import type beers these days. I found out from a friend they make Landshark Lager, Shock Top, Sun Dog and all those Michelob specialty brands, which are pretty darn good because I’ve tried some. OK EVERYONE, LET’S SAVE A-B BY BUYING AS MUCH OF THEIR PRODUCT AS POSSIBLE. THROW A PARTY! HOW FUN! Just drive safely, guys!
I have to say I’m proud of AB. It takes guts to stand up to these foreign companies trying to take over our major corporations. I really love to hear these companies saying, “It will be business as usual!” I am a banker and have been through a few mergers, including Boatmen’s and Mercantile. In both instances, we were told, it will be business as usual. Enough said. St. Louis, stay behind AB!
Jim
I am ex-Boatmen’s…1993-1999, went through the mergers as well. And the sad thing is that was American companies that stuck it to St Louis. Of course, we didn’t seem to mind when we were buying Bank V in Kansas or Worthen Bank in Arkansas…
Tim, this economy is TOTALLy different from the 80’s. Globally, economically, internet/information/media, politically , etc. Everything is second to second, media can be mis-informed, distorted and people are so distracted they don’t care anymore. Companies are allowed to borrow billions with no questions/research, history etc and take out companies.
Please read up on InBev and how they came about. They can’t stop this machine of taking over because they will be out of business. His market share…..not so great…his stock not so great compared to what he is claiming he can do with his greatness of Inbev/AB. Anything he has acheived has been very costly and the payoff …..well you decide. Because you all will have to put your money somewhere and since some of you swear by by Inbev I know you will all invest ALL of your money with him!!! Right???
I don’t know, I do know this is on a list of very sad and very tragic endings to hard working individuals and companies (because there are many companies/individuals involved with AB’s success) that we as a whole just don’t seem to give a damn about. If we can’t rely upon ourselves who can we rely upon? Foreign interests? Yeah, how is that working out for us right now? Everyone screams for our help, the world looks at us for help, we go, get blasted in the end for not minding our own business. Just like AB, globally we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
I had a feeling this was gonna get messy. Although it’s not going to change the outcome, I hope it’s a spit in the face for Brito. After reading stories for the past week about him trying to fellate local politicians, I’m set that this guy is a total douche. He can take his “this is good for STL” rhetoric elsewhere.
Euro-trash go home. Soccer sucks anyway.
Why have you small-minder, provincial types reduced the argument to issues like ball-parks, jobs, corn growers, civic duties etc.?
This is abount QUALITY BEER.
Your local hero, A-B, brews the weakest bloody ‘beer-like-substance’ in the world. It is offensive to anyone who actually has taste buds.
On the other hand, Stella Artois is one of the finest beers available.
PLEASE, let this takeover happen and long live good beer.
The rest of you stupid NASCAR, Baseball, Basketball, no-tastebud Budweiser swilling fools can switch to Milwaukie or whatever.
Why have you small-minded, Saint Louis provincial types reduced the argument to issues like ball-parks, jobs, corn growers, civic duties, local politicians etc.?
Is it true that Saint Louis people always ask which Elementary and High School you went to? Does this may explain their small-minded attitude?
Well, I attended school on THREE DIFFERENT CONTINENTS and lets be frank - this is about QUALITY BEER!
Your local hero, A-B, brews the weakest bloody ‘beer-like-substance’ in the world. It is offensive to anyone who actually has taste buds.
On the other hand, Stella Artois is one of the finest beers available.
PLEASE, let this takeover happen and long live good beer.
The rest of you stupid NASCAR, Baseball, Basketball, no-tastebud Budweiser swilling fools can switch to Milwaukie, Schlitz or whatever.
Vive InBev!