Anheuser-Busch sold to InBev: Good deal or bad?

A deal made with the share holders,right?

I am shocked and saddened. I can’t believe A-B is now being run by a European company. I love St. Louis, but I cannot, and will not support this new Anheuser Busch-Inbev. Goodbye to one of the greatest American companies ever.

When was the last time a change resulted in the better of the common good?I dont know. Long term I guess bad.

This is a very sad day for me being an employee of AB. I feel as if all US citizens are justing “renting” America. We’re all renting from foreign countries….

How sad for St. Louis and America that we lost another American Company. I am saddened that GREEDY money hungry Shareholders are more worried about how to get rich quick instead of a long term future for an American company. We as Americans are going to be in big trouble in the not too distant future when we have nothing left American owned. Shame on you A-B. I am very worried about our city now. I bet that this Brito guy will play nice for two years then move the headquarters out of St. Louis to make even more money. This is a sad day for our city.

Why isn’t something being done about American companies being gobbled up by foreign interests?! This was a bad move for A-B and for St. Louis! America is in deep trouble!!! St. Louis is about to become the next Detroit!!!

As much as this sucks, boycotting A-B products will only hurt St. Louisans who work at the brewery.

Time will tell if the deal will be good for the region but if St. Louis really does become the North American HQ for ABI, then there could be some hope. The sad thing is the loss of an icon that made St. Louis proud for so long.

Farewell A-B. As long as your products are made in St. Louis, I will support you.

The King is dead, Long live the King.
I have seven buds left which is a shame because that is the last I ever purchase. For all of you that say I will only hurt the workers, save it because the workers will be hurting soon enough. I’ll support american owned products and god willing some of those workers can go back to an american company if more of us do the same.
As a former May company employee my advice to AB workers is this, hold on to your a**, you about to get f*****d.

What do you think? Off course it’s bad. St. Louis is losing one major corporate headquarters after another. This was the very last gem that St. Louis had and now it’s gone. The lesson here is that the world has changed. St. Louis is a conservative city and unfortunately St. Louis based companies have acted too conservatively. Rather than growning through acquisition or agressive organic growth, the companies have taken a cautious path and ultimately they have all paid the price. The city of St. Louis remains in decline and the anti-business taxes and infrastructure will ultimately cause a company such as INBev, with no real connection to the region, to slowly pull up roots. In 10 years, the brewery will be a shell of it’s former self if it exists at all in St. Louis.

Bud
Bud
Bud
Bud
Bud Weis
Bud Weis
Bud Weis Er
Bud Weis Er
Bud Weis Er

Thank you Frogs. You were the ones who made Budweiser and A-B what it was.

for shareholder it was great, for stl it was bad. I am with the boycott, only a matter of time before they move out of here anyway. Anybody currently employed there now needs to be looking elsewhere unless they are as naive as we were with the chances of no deal taking place. I wonder how much Al Hrabosky’s and the saveab guy made off of all this? We can only hope that they have no good way of paying off those loans but that’s unlikely as well.

really unless you work for the company this will have no effect on you. they claim to be committed to keeping the brewery here and would be insane to move it. does it matter what corporate suit counts the beans at the end of the day? the way AB is portayed as this local mom and pop being bullied around by a corporate ogre is comical. as far as not drinking bud products now….. why? its still bottled in st louis and as long as there are people from my town brewing it im gonna support it.

i thought budweiser was ‘great american lager’ - that’s not very american. WTF is that?

How do you put a price on a legend? It is just sickening. I felt like St. Louis, who supported this company for years was just kicked in the a.. . It was a bad idea all the way around.

From one Midwestern City to another I am sadden by the loss of AB. It will forever go down in history as one of the most amazing American companies ever. One of the main reasons I would visit StL was because of AB. InBev will lose in the long run. May they rot in heck!

Yes!!! I’m rich!!!!

It doesn’t really matter, does it? The dollar signs rang true in the eyes of all involved. I feel most disappointed in the fact that AB pretended to fight against the takeover. They were just trying to get a higher price. And they got it. Why should they care that I just dumped my Budweiser out in my backyard and won’t buy another AB product ever again? The people of St. Louis never mattered to AB. Anheuser-Busch just put another nail in the coffin of America, of what America used to be.

Personally, I support the Free Market and accept that this is part of what a Free Market brings.

Really - asking for the government to get involved in a deal between two companies just really smacks of socialism.

I think that the biggest problem here is that InBev is known to be ruthless at cost savings (which means - bye bye jobs) and no doubt InBev will seek cost savings both by reducing jobs in St. Louis as well as, I would predict (regardless of what either company will say) look to start moving operations to lower cost areas as soon as possible.

I can’t and won’t fault any of the previous comments I have read. Just please keep in mind that A-B management had many, many, many, Etc. opportunities to grow by international acquisitions and chose not to do so. (This is based on first hand experience.) Sine August III stepped down the management (AAB IV)and board have done nothing for shareholder value. Their ineptness invited this situation and they are the ones to blame…not InBev. It breaks my heart after 27 years at A-B. Boy do we miss Denny Long, Mike Roarty and AAB III!!!!

This is awful! When will America quit letting all these shareholders make all the decisions what happened to the little person’s voice I thought A-B was one of the only companies left that cared about the little man.St. Louis will feel these harsh actions for years to come. Good Bye to the best beer we have!

This whole thing defies description.

I sincerely hope everyone boycotts AB-InBev and the company goes into the crapper - just to show what a BIG mistake this was.

I’m no longer a supporter nor will I ever drink an Anheuser-Busch product thanks to this.

American company, owned by a foreign one. What a pathetic state our economy has become.

This is horrible for St. Louis. Another blogger was right, we’re going to be the next Detroit.

When has any St. Louis merger been good?

- Macy’s promised the May Company that StL would be the Midwestern division headquarters, only to slash it in half

- American Airlines promised that they had a huge commitment to the city of St. Louis, only to re-route all of our flights and international flights over to Chicago O’Hare and reduce their flights here from 500+ to 200

- Now this. Goodbye Soulard, you’re going to look just like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Good deal-

Bud wasn’t producing very good beer anyways. Let the quality Missouri brewers like Schlafly, O’Fallon, and Boulevard, among others, take the brewing helm. Maybe now Saint Louis can focus on a future industry with real potential - the life sciences.

Bush and the Republicans have betrayed us all with their incompetence and gross mismanagement of our nation. Our dollar is so weak that the world is buying up our assets at fire sale prices.

Well, even though they do business with Miller now, the Coors Brewery is still owned by the Coors family. I guess I’m drinking Coors Light from now on.

DL is 100% correct. St. Louis is conservative, and the conservative leaders of the companies based here are being left in the dust. Anheuser-Busch is yet another example for us, but the sad thing is, us being St. Louisans, we’ll just do nothing about it but maintain the status quo. St. Louis is destined to continue it’s long decline, which is now over a century old, because we would rather continue on with the same ways of doing things, because, even though we know those policies have been proven failures time and time again, we’d rather stick with a proven failure because the result is predictable, and changing is not an option because, well…it requires change.

In today’s increasingly competitive, fast-changing and global world, we need to change and adapt with the times more than ever. In a high tech world that values education more than ever, St. Louis is one of the poorest educated metropolitan areas. We have so much going for us, but when it comes to choices to make the best of what we have, we get a D- because we simply won’t think big and bold.

That being said, boycotting Budweiser will do nothing but hurt ourselves, like cutting off our nose to spite our face. Drinking Miller Lite or Coors, or just about any other beer, will do nothing but hurt the local brewery employees and the local distributors, who need our help more than ever. PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELF BY BOYCOTTING BUDWEISER. If you want to help St. Louis, start encouraging our leaders to change with the times.

I won’t buy another AB product. I’m sick and tired of selling this country down the river.

Unbelievable. What will the blue-collar job loss be for the year 2008 in Saint Louis? First Chrysler and now AB. Saint Louis might as well go right to work, because skilled, hard, and meticulous work is looking to be making a much lower wage now. There may still be many jobs available at the brewery, but judging by InBev’s record with unions, the rich will get richer by taking money out of the blue collar worker’s pocket. Instead of letting the filthy rich white collars take a hit, it’s those workers who break their back day in and day out to make a living wage who will no longer be able to do so. Good riddance AB. I’ve bought my last Bud.

Miller’s merger with MolsonCoors has already cost jobs in Milwaukee. Even more jobs at the office HQ in Milw. will be lost when they move to the new HQ (possibly Dallas). Don’t be surprised when they start lopping jobs off in STL.

Regardless, sad day for American brewing industry. With the way the dollar is, don’t be surprised if more industries aren’t gobbled up. (e.g., Ford, GM, etc.)

This day will be forever remembered along with other Awful Days in St. Louis history such as: 1) The day railroads decided to focus their westward expansion through Chicago, 2) the great tornado of 1896, 3)TWA gets bought by American Airlines, etc. The first thing to go after the pride of being a St. Louis owned business will be the jobs. Someone should ask Mayor Slay if he can petition to change the name of our city to Flint.

Main Entry:
greed Listen to the pronunciation of greed
Pronunciation:
ˈgrēd
Function:
noun
Etymology:
back-formation from greedy
Date:
1609

: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed

Main Entry:
in·teg·ri·ty Listen to the pronunciation of integrity
Pronunciation:
in-ˈte-grə-tē
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English integrite, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French integrité, from Latin integritat-, integritas, from integr-, integer entire
Date:
14th century

1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility 2 : an unimpaired condition : soundness 3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness

Anheuser-Busch was previously known as the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association, or ABBA for short. The corporate symbol is the legenday
A&Eagle emblem.

I just dumped out the last three Bud Lights in my fridge. Good Luck Carlos Brita Water Inbev. A lifetime Bud drinker will never touch that shi* again. I would rather drink out of a urinal at the Schlafly brewery. Hard to believe a brewery in one of the tiniest most insignificant countries in Europe was able to buy the King of Beers. Belgium, are you freaking serious? Can you even fly to there direct from the US? Hey at least it wasn’t Luxembourg I guess. Can’t wait to see the Bud beer truck being pulled by a Fiat and a poodle on top. Can I adopt a Clydesdale before they go the glue factory?

Rick Martin, you don’t have your facts straight. Not long after South African Breweries bought Miller and renamed the company SABMiller, foreign brewery Molson merged with Coors and it became MolsonCoors. Get your facts straight, Rick.

So if you drink Coors, you are NOT supporting an American-owned company, and worse you are supporting one that has virtually zero jobs here, at the expense of a company that, at least for now, has thousands of jobs here. You may be angry and want to do SOMETHING in response to this happening, but do the right thing, not something that will hurt us even more. The Busch family did not want this to happen. The stockholders are what pressured them into this decision, and much of the stock is owned by you and me, via our union pensions or our 401(k) plans that we check so often to see if the value has gone up. It’s called the American way, for better or for worse.

It’s a shame for St. Louis. Too bad Busch sold so many shares over the years. It was a matter of time until someone out voted them.
I’m not impressed with the strategy of this purchase. Investors purchased AB stock knowing the company was good at marketing and was generous with its compensation plans. Now they may sell out and changing culture and lifestyles forever.
I doubt Brito sells more beer than the Busch family or anyone else.
And anyone can cut cuts. Now Inbev’s shareholders get saddled with billions of debt service. This transaction is all about Brito’s backers lining their pockets.

Will AB Inbev be broken into parts again in 10 years?

what ever Brito says is just to make him look good. He doesn’t care that so many businesses have already left St.Louis. He doesn’t care that its a locally owned. I can’t understand why people don’t understand the importance of this. This is another American business gone to foreign companies. What if the there was a new owner of the Cardinals and he decided to take it and move the team to Idaho? would that get your blood a boiling? Its just the same with this Brito guy. Brito will never be the King of Beers, he has a long way to go to earn that title.

Carlos Brito for St. Louis Mayer - finally a person who can get things done in St. Louis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let’s not portray Bud with the violins playing and the flag waving in the background…it is a Business,and as such,exists for one thing..to make as much $$$ as possible…the All American thing is pure marketing,like drinking Bud is patriotic..give me a break..it uses the flag to advance it’s own agenda…make the $$$…as a former,now retired,union Bud delivery man,I can tell you the last two Busch chiefs had very little regard for the guys that delivered their beer..in their eyes, we were “overpaid and underworked”..don’t confuse their multi-million $$ ads for what has been the reality.

Miller was bought by South African Brewery to form SABMiller. Coors merged with Molson to form CoorsMolson and just this month merged with SABMiller to form MillerCoors. So Miller and Coors are both foriegned owned, A-B was the last major brewer to fall. The weak dollar had more to do with this deal than any management decision the Busch family made.

No, it will not be good for St. Louis.

Scott: you are absolutely right! This sucks, but isn’t it the Capitalistic way? We can only hurt St. Louis more by boycotting the products. If you DON’T want St. Louis to become the next Flint, MI, then don’t forsake the products, the new company, and St. Louis. If the beer was good before, then it’s good now, at least until InBev cuts quality. We should try to give the new company a chance. The Busch family didn’t want this. Employee stockholders didn’t want this. But CAPITALISTIC STOCKHOLDERS, likely not employed at the company, DID. Also, shouldn’t we look at the root cause problem, THE WEAK DOLLAR!

Uh Scott do your homework before you pop off. The merger between Coors and Molson was a JOINT VENTURE to combine sales, marketing, and production. It was not a total BUYOUT like the InBev/AB deal. The Coors family still owns the brewery in Colorado. Look it up.

IT WILL BE GREAT FOR ST. LOUIS - the focus will be put on actually making a profit!

Business is Business
If you want a friend get a dog - Gordon Gecko!!!!!!!!!!!!

To those who say HQ will be moved. To where? And why? Do you know how much property AB has downtown? He isn’t going to place those buildings in a fire sale just so he can move somewhere else for no good reason and have to buy more property.

It is a sad day for St. Louis and America. For the employees of A-B I will still support the company but if they do move it from St. Louis that support will be over.

There was the rumor that this deal might be nixed because, as a foreign company, InBev did commerce in Cuba. What happened with that facet of the issue? Did such a facet even exist?

So, what’s left? Ted Drews and Imo’s?

Not only have we lost one of the great icons this city has, A-B made it worse by intially saying no to the deal. It appears they were just waiting around for a higher price. And as disgusted as I feel now, things are going to get a whole lot worse in the next few years.

Goodbye, Anheuser-Busch. And to think, I was going to tour the brewery now that I’m old enough to get the drinks at the end. Guess I better find myself a new brand.

great deal! nothing is forever, but this deal once again makes AB (et al) the largest brewery in the world. thank goodness the ballclub was sold several years ago. the beer will always be the best lager around (at least, in ours lifetime)

more later

thanks for the forum.

I will never buy AB again. So much for the great American Lager.

This is good for St Louis - will expose AB products to new markets

Just to clarify, Coors did not merge with SABMiller. It merged it’s US operations with Miller Brewing Company. SABMiller is a huge company that owns many different businesses all over the world. Miller is only a small part of their holdings. Don’t say it’s the same thing because it’s not. Coors is not owned by SABMiller. Yes they are partners with Miller which is owned by SABMiller. The Coors family still owns their brewery which is more than I can say for the Busch’s. I’ll still drink a bud light nown then but I will try a coors light now.

I can’t believe the uninformed comments posted about the greedy shareholders. If you are going to get angry at someone, try getting mad at the Busch family for giving-up their controlling interest in the company in the first place. They cashed-out a long time ago. Or more appropriately, how about getting mad at G. W. Bush for waging two wars without raising taxes, resulting in the lowest value for the dollar in decades. As one prior poster highlighted, this never could happen if we hadn’t literally mortgaged our future with these mismanaged wars.

there’s no crying in baseball or brewing. come on, st. louis. when did you lose the ability to grow? this is good for AB and good for st. louis! budweiser will now be sold in eastern europe and asia! i wish everyone could visit brussels and get a taste of belgium hospitality (and beer)…

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. No one cried foul when AB bought up iconic foreign brands. Now the same thing happens to AB. Sounds fair to me.

This will be a bad deal for the St. Louis region. However that is how the free market works and we must realize that AB became stagnant under its directors. Many may blame politicians, but ultimately, AB directors fell asleep.

I see a call for boycotts. Why? Because Inbev did what AB should have been looking to do? Because Inbev is foreign?

Boycotting ABI (Anheuser-Busch InBev) is not the solution.

The solution is to raise educated citizens who have good business skills and write to your senator to find ways to strengthen the U.S. dollar.

Boycotting ABI will do nothing except give ABI a bigger reason to cut jobs-jobs that are local.

I have held 10,000 shares of bud since the 80’s. I did not want this deal to go through and I am very sad for the sale of a once huge american icon.

on a side note, anyone notice that carlos brito looks like the guy in sling blade?

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080707/capt.61cf86b69b1a42e88b4f1454aa47731d.belgium_inbev_anheuser_busch_nybz173.jpg

http://images.zap2it.com/20050615/slingblade_240_001.jpg

As I’ve said in these pages before… InBev + AB = STL-DOA

Forget fundraising
Forget culture
Forget sports
Forget political reach or power
Forget everything and anything that once made this city anything but a landlocked, rusting, hideous shell of a backwater nowhere.

Sold out once again by the Country Day crowd… it seem that the only thing they learn in that school is how to sell Daddy’s business (or granddad’s.)

There is no long any reason for this city to exist. Send your kids to school and do like i’ve done with mine… tell them to go live somewhere else.

Somewhere… where there is more than just a Democratic machine with politicians so ingrained that they only know how to fight each other for the right to be the biggest fly on the pile of horse sh*t.

Somewhere where they are smart enough to let the CEO of the largest telicom in the world play golf so he doesn’t move the company out-of-town.

Someplace where they start and grow companies not sell them off. This place is a dirty little mill town and the mill just closed.

Finish school kids, then get the living h*ll out of here. I’ll be right behind you, after my parents are gone.

The last one out… turn off the lights.

Now maybe Bud can be made with corn instead of flavorless rice, like real beers!

*sigh* Here goes all of St. Louis down the tubes.

I know this isn’t a popular thing to say right now, but here goes… I take all these people saying they won’t buy A-B products anymore with a very large grain of salt (in fact, it’s called a salt lick). So many people say this type of stuff, but when it comes down to sticking by their actual words, they cave. How many times have I heard union workers tell people not to shop at Wal-Mart because the company is anti-union? Now, remember the grocery store chain lockout of the unions in St. Louis a few years back? The grocery section of the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Eureka was packed over the course of the lockout! Of course, none of those Wal-Mart grocery shoppers were union workers! Right! So, why didn’t these union workers have the gumption to stick by their words and drive over to Illinois for groceries? Because most people don’t have the backbone to stick by their words! Never buy A-B products again? Don’t make me laugh!

Your Sunday story on InBev made me realize that Bud was done in by the Bushes. Those that ran the company and didn’t grow it and the one in the White House that has run this country into the ground like Argentina where InBev earlier picked off another brewery because of the devalued Argentina currency. Your story also mentioned how InBev will run a tight ship keeping executive perks in check unlike Bud and its fleet of corporate jets, etc… maybe other American companies’ can learn something from InBev in this regard.

tsquare said:
As I’ve said in these pages before… InBev + AB = STL-DOA
Forget fundraising
Forget culture
Forget sports
Forget political reach or power

For those of us outside St. Louis, this is a good thing! Maybe AB will stop subsidizing all this nonsense in St Louis and LOWER their OBSCENELY HIGH PRICES!

Remember, A-B has squashed smaller companies under its heel in the past and walked away with an aloof attitude. So finally A-B met a bigger fish. I’m sure those smaller companies aren’t crying over A-B’s misfortune. I’m sure they feel A-B had it coming.

If the people of St. Louis really wanted to keep A-B American-owned, then they could buy the majority of the outstanding shares and vote against the takeover.

I’ve always strongly supported Anheuser Bush. I remember when I was in Orlando, A-B allowed free admission into Seaworld with a military ID - the $50 or so would have been a good chunk of my entire day’s budget otherwise.

Inbev from what I have seen is a “management” company. They will apply the same souless management principles to gain “efficiency” - in other words squeeze the workers’ pay down as much as possible, concentrate on manufactured PR instead of trying to do a good job and let the results speak for themselves, and try to create quality through idiotic methods such as “lean Six Sigma”.

I’m done with Anheuser Bush (Inbev?) at this point. There’s plenty of other beers to choose from and I refuse to support a company whose greedy shareholders sold out for a quick buck.

Will the last person out of St. Louis turn the light out?

Let’s see….City/County archaic government. State AND City income taxes. Almost every company that WAS in St. Louis is relocating to more favorable areas….or will in the near future. What’s left. Nothing.

St. Louis just got screwed…and not by InBev…look no further than Number 4 and the rest of the crew at AB that sold the company. There’s a lot of no-talent, golden handcuffed hacks over there that are really going to be nervous right about now. I say good for InBev, I’ll help point out the detritus….time to thin out the herd.

Creating shareholder value? are you kidding me. How many citizens of St. Louis actually own AB stock. And if you don’t work for the company, I bet it’s not many shares. This is like Wal Mart saying they create jobs. The part they leave our is that they actually povide incremental low income, sub-standard jobs that really don’t do anything for the tax base of a city…in fact, those jubs are a drain. Shareholder value??? At what cost?

thank goodness AB doesn’t own the Cardinals oh man I wonder what that would be like now if they did..

Why does it matter to the rest of the country if InBev shuts down operations in St. Louis? Did any of you in St. Louis care what happened to Latrobe, PA?

The last time I checked Missouri was a Republican stronghold with many “hard-working Americans”. Now who supports all those free-market theories? Ahh, the Republicans… It’s simple as supply and demand, the $$ is cheap for Europeans right now and - another Republican concept - the guy with the most money wins! And so it all comes full circle and hits you right in the face.

Horrible for St. Louis and if we boycott, Inbev will shut the brewery down alot quicker than they originally have planned, our once proud city will continue its slide into oblivion, soon we will be competing with the Little Rocks and Shreveports, when are the Rams Poised to leave, and the blues. Sad, I Love St. Louis but less and less of it to Love, I imagine the museums will be closing and the zoo soon.

“This is awful! When will America quit letting all these shareholders make all the decisions what happened to the little person’s voice I thought A-B was one of the only companies left that cared about the little man…”

Are you kidding? The shareholders are the ones who put their hard-earned money at risk to invest in the company and hopefully see their investment grow. And you have the temerity to disparage the very same individuals whose investment allowed that company to exist to provide the beverages you so enjoy? You’re way out of line. The company did not exist for the betterment of the little guy. The company didn’t go public years ago for the betterment of the little guy. Investors didn’t put their hard-earned money where their mouths were for the betterment of the little guy.

That’s nice that you like the company. But you’ve got no right to elevate your interests above those who were willing to take RISK to see that company succeed. Your interests are subordinated because your risk extended only so far as the possibility of getting a sub-par product.

Absolutely stupid that no one is blaming the real people responsible for this– August Busch III and IV. They sold you a bill of goods, St. Louis! Don’t you remember the commercials talking about them being a family company, and the real AMERICAN LAGER? Don’t you remember the comments saying that they were going to fight this, that AB wasn’t for sale? Then explain to me how they only have 1.4% of the stock… or that they don’t have voting rights on the board? Give me a break. The time of the real AMERICAN, FAMILY LAGER died when Gussie Busch passed away. The torch has been passed. Long live the real hometown breweries– Schlafly, O’Fallon, Allendale… hopefully they will capitalize on AB’s mistakes, and grow stronger. And as for the employees of AB– I am sorry. I feel for those who will lose their jobs eventually. But if it wasn’t for the egotistical, arrogant swagger that you and your distributors have carried around this town for years (no doubt cultivated by those at the top) the deal that nobody wanted wouldn’t have happened.

So drink up St. Louis, sidle on up to the bar and raise a glass of the NEW BELGIAN LAGER in a toast to the company that deserves their come-uppins!

if you didn’t want inbev to buy anheuser-busch they should never have went public with the company and kept it in family control. i suppose loyalty does have it price.

i see so many people saddened by a-b being bought out by inbev yet the busch’s could careless. so why should i care?

Very good point, KC

Congratulations, St. Louis…you’re the NEW Detroit. I yie, yie. Good luck, folks. I can’t believe this actually happened.

This is a sad day for America–and St. Louis. But, it may not be the end of the story. Granite City Steel was sold to the Japanese in the 1980s and sold back to US Steel just over a decade later. Chrysler was sold to the Germans and then back to an American equity firm. But, it does speak to the weakening of our currency and will most likely result in the loss of St. Louis jobs. A real shame…

“If the people of St. Louis really wanted to keep A-B American-owned, then they could buy the majority of the outstanding shares and vote against the takeover.”

Amen. But that would require putting money where one’s mouth is, and it’s so much easier to do nothing and then complain that your desires aren’t being considered or respected. Obama voters, presumably.

Andrew - if you’d like to know what it would be like if A-B owned the Cardinals, read up on the Toronto Blue Jays history. The team won back-to-back world series in 1992 and 1993, and let’s just say when Interbrew (now InBev) took over majority team owner Labatt in 1994, things went downhill. Coincidence? Fortunately, since 2000 Rogers, a Canadian company is the majority owner, and trying to turn things around.

Oh, and in a non-baseball note, they closed a brewery in Toronto, Canada’s largest city.

I was always so proud that no matter where I was in the United States, after an AB beer commercial I’d hear “Anheuser-Busch Incorporated, St. Louis, Missouri”. Now I guess it’ll be “Anheuser-Busch-Inbev Incorporated, Belgium”. HUGE loss for St. Louis. HUGE. But at least multibillionaire Warren Buffett profited by about $300,000,000.

No A-B-I products for me. I buy AMERICAN whenever possible.

ONLY THE BIG WIGS WILL GET THE $70/SHARE–ALL THE LITTLE OWNERS WILL GET WORTHLESS IM-BEV STOCK. SINCE WHEN IS IT LEGAL TO DO BUSINESS WITH CUBAN COLLABORATORS? DOESN’T THE SEC OBEY THE RULES ANYMORE? WHO’S GOING TO BUY THE REAL ESTATE TO PAY FOR THE LBO?—ALL THE DEVELOPERS ARE BROKE. GOOD OLD AUGGIE SAVED THE COMPANY IN THE LAST DEPRESSION–THE GREAT GENES WENT TO THE GRAVE WITH HIM.

Although I left STL many years ago, this is another example of another company leaving STL. I left because the opportunities no longer existed here, the mind state is ultra-conservative, the STL region as a whole does not operate functionally (cite the 92 minicipalities)and the tax structure and 1% earnings tax does not fly in the world of business. STL has once again failed, and with the last real corporate gem the city has left, this will be a tough blow and could be the final nail in the coffin for the city.

Why you ask? Wait and see how many jobs Mr Carlos Britta cuts, he is known to Wall ST as the “Euro Butcher” all the corporate tax dollars, the huge salaries, the taxes paid will now flow to InBev in Belgium. I am glad this has happened, I own several thousand shares of AB, and as a shareholder, the have a right to seek the most return for my money. $70 a share is an early xmas gift for me in the horrendous stock market, I will take it!

Also, AB never hired my immigrant family members, their friends, nor their offspring due in part to the typical STL nepotism as in what goddamn high school did you go to, or did your realatives work here at AB? I say good riddence and give me my goddamn money.

Well so much for a great American icon. Now every time I go overseas and see Budweiser truck or logo, I’ll have to think of the shareholders who sold it out. Nice try though, Augustus. Guess you are not as powerful as you thought you were.

Did the St. Louis economy die when McDonnell Douglas sold out? What about when May or TWA sold out? A-B employed 6,000 people here in a town where somewhere around 1.5 million of us work. Let’s be realistic about the impact this will have on the local economy.

I would imagine Chrysler just fired as many people as A-B will let go.

This new Detroit talk is just ridiculous. Have some pride in this city and its economy.

Capitalism is what America was built on… so the selling out of every last American icon is nothing short of… patriotic! All these unhappy comments are just Red Flag waving liberal socialists trying to undo the workings of our great nation.

Personally, my stock went up: I’m rich beotch!!!

this is a great thing, the old hierarchy at A-B was allowing it to slip into a lull of quality, InBev will clean house and right the ship

Rich Martin, I admit, all the brewery and brewery division mergers are damn confusing. But I want to clarify that MolsonCoors is NOT a joint venture. Molson and Coors merged and became MolsonCoors, and they changed their name as a result of the merger. Perhaps you got confused with the joint venture that MolsonCoors and SABMiller just formed last month. The joint venture is a 50/50 owned subsidiary that will operate the breweries and marketing of both MolsonCoors and SABMiller brands in the United States only. But the point is, the joint venture is owned by these foreign companies that own the former Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing and the former Golden, Colorado-based Coors Brewing Company. The joint venture, a subsidiary of MolsonCoors and SABMiller, is called MillerCoors. The name sounds American but it’s nothing but a subsidiary of foreign-owned companies MolsonCoors and SABMiller. These companies have such a tangled web of foreign ownership, one couldn’t call them American companies by any stretch of the imagination.

The Coors family does NOT own their brewery, as you say. It is owned by MolsonCoors shareholders, a significant portion of whom are foreign because they owned shares in Molson Brewing Company before the merger. According to MolsonCoors.com, “insider” ownership of MolsonCoors totals a whopping 1.4% of total outstanding shares, about $167 million dollars worth of stock. The “insider” ownership includes not only the Coors family but Molson family members and all key corporate executives of the company. Therefore, the Coors family owns but a miniscule percentage of MolsonCoors stock.

While A-B is worth about 4 times that of MolsonCoors, August Busch 3 & 4 alone own over $300 million of A-B stock, (valued at the current $65/share), according to anheuser-busch.com. When you include their options, they control almost $800 million worth of the stock. So when you say that the Coors family owns their brewery while saying that the Busch family doesn’t have much of a stake in A-B, your statements simply are not based in fact.

the brewery chose not to expand when others did world wide–and the stock’s performance wasn’t that great growth wise.
i didnt want to see this happen.
but it is ab’s mgmt that let this happen.
it is not an evil foreign company that did this.
st louis is a great city, and hopefully things will be ok.

Its a sad day in history people, all I can say is hello Sam Adams. I see a huge boycott coming on, and a big hit for In Bev. help keep our beer in the USA and lets find away to reverse this.

Don’t work at AB, no family members work there but plenty of friends. 99% of those friends have said there is so much waste of time and money at the brewery and everyone there knew it. The Busch’s owned less than 5% of their own company. Now, who is the bad guy here! This has been in the making for YEARS. How else can you explain the poor stock price for the last 5+ years. You can bet it was not the Busch family who was looking out for St. Louis…….Auggie must be spinning in his grave. Oh, yeah and thanks George BUSH for our weak standing in the world’s financal community.

Mary Rene–no, it was an all-cash offer for all of the stock. The Cuban question didn’t matter since they are incorporated in a foreign country. And the debt will be held by dozens of banks and institutional investors who have quite a bit of uncommitted capital. Any more conspiracy theories to clean up?

Fuxks–come on, now. There’s quite a few great corporations still based here. Monsanto, Worldwide Technology, and Edward Jones come to mind. It’s not like we lost the only big company that we have.

As a beer drinker in another great American beer town, I’m sorry for St. Louis. This will be bad for St. Louis and soon Bud will be as diluted as the other brands that InBev has ruined (Bass was a great English ale and now tastes like swill).

It is too bad that we don’t protect our national food and beverage heritage the way other countries who know that there is more than money and greed that makes a country and who understand that food tourism equals $$$ into the local economy. If we had laws like those of Bordeaux, for example, sales like this and the ones that killed Milwaukee wouldn’t be allowed.

For all of you who want to still drink an American beer, brewed in America in the cradle of the Revolution with a pedigree to match, you can drink Sam Adams. Jim Koch has kept his brewery right here in Beantown depsite offers by the “big guys”.

Good Luck St. Louis. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for you.

I just wonder what the Europeans think of St. Louis, a city (excluding the county) which is loaded with crime, probably the worst public school system in the nation, and an airport that went from a mega-hub a few years ago to the runway to nowhere with the loss of TWA. We will be lucky to even keep the brewery here. Furthermore, our leaders like Sen. Claire McCaskill were absolutely rude to Mr. Brito, telling him to his face in front of the cameras that she didn’t want his firm to do business in our city. She is also a huge Obama supporter, which doesn’t surprise me. What would I have done? St. Louis doesn’t have a choice. I would have let the company have the whole damn city, and do so tax-free. We have nothing to lose. They might be able to take over the ailing school system and import some of the best educators from Europe; they might be able to fix the streets, get rid of hideous stoplight system we have from the 1950s, clean up the crime, and really make the city the symbol of a civic renaissance - the Gateway to the West - to showcase for the whole world. New development would then stem from that, bringing us back to our feet. But they did it the way they’ve been running our region for years, and the decline continues. St. Louis doesn’t deserve to be the host of a world headquarters. It’s not the city I don’t love, it’s the idiots we have for their backward-thinking, anti-business mentality and terrible leadership that has brought us to where we are now. In that sense, the people of St. Louis voted the current leadership in, so they have no room to complain about this transaction and whether the new company decides to continue operations here or not.

Maybe this new company will use its newfound clout in Missouri politics to push for a repeal on the sugar ethanol tariff!

Ask the cities of Fenton and Hazelwood about corporate committments. This is the beginning of the end. Gussie is rolling over in his grave. Hey Board of Director: For all you did, this Bud’s NOT for you.

If I see one damn InBev sign Busch Stadium there’s going be a damn Riot.

There’s no St. Louis in St. Louis anymore.

Time to find a new beer. Guess I’ll not renew my Busch Gardens/Seaworld annual pass for next year either. McDonnellDouglas and now Anheuser Busch. Glad I moved to Florida.

Scott: Nice way to turn a time of civic discontent and sadness into a platform for you personal political agenda. Nice work, stud.

Dean,

The Miller-Coors company will be headquatered in Chicago, this was announced on Friday, they beat out Dallas, Milwukee and Denver. All the big dollar corporate jobs from those areas will now flow into Chicago. Why can’t STL get it’s teeth sharp and make things happen? Becuse the Gov’t is disfunctional. I’m in Chicago, and I will say this, 20 years ago it was in decline here, but through aggresive infrastucture, solid county wide leadership, and a thirst to make the city prominent, this place is booming while the rest of the midwest sinks. Sadly, STL, you are now the next Detroit and that is sad.

this is a sad day for st. louis - the board should be ashamed

Scott–St. Louis city public schools aren’t great, but calling them the worst in the nation is over the top.

Boston Beer Drinker–you are aware Sam Adams is a public company that someone could try to buy? It’s not like the founder could just say no if someone tried to buy them–Koch owns all of 2% of the company. No one would pay for them at their current multiple, but it’s still a fair point that their owner has no more power than the Busches did. Also, if we had laws like Bordeaux, we’d have 9% unemployment. Not a great tradeoff in my book

Hey ‘blob’ and (some) other posters… It wasn’t President Bush who sold the blinkin’ company, it was the BOARD OF A-B. Their the greedy, irresponsible people. BTW, I’m a shareholder - I have not voted for this sale; I WILL not vote to approve this sale. So THERE’S your “free market” at work.

Derek–why should the board be ashamed? It’s job to act in the interest of shareholders. They are their appointed representatives. The shareholders told them to get a deal done, and they did. Why should they be ashamed about doing their job?

Another uniquely American icon is whored out for quick profits. Promises will be made that this will only have a minimal impact on St. Louis, and as soon as the ink is dry In-Bev will begin plans to forever alter the history of St. Louis and A-B.

What a very sad day…and how ironic that I was enjoying a Bud earlier this evening with some friends. It will - and I say this with absolute certainty - be the last Bud I ever have. Let’s face it…Bud is mediocre at best, but it was home-grown. Now it’s been sold down the Mississippi so a few nameless white men can become even wealthier.

Microbrews, here I come.

Paul,

I respect your enthusiam and passion a great deal, but, the corporate status, the loss of corporate taxes that fund the city services, just to name a few, will have devastating consequnses over time. Trust me when I tell you that there will be a ton of layoffs over the years, Mr Britta is known for that. I have a spouce in the industry and I can tell you that there will be many heads chopped in STL due to this takeover. Who to blame? no one, this is business, this is the global economy at work here folks. If AB was so “concerned” about this and then wanted to do things to create shareholder value, they should have done it the past 5 years. They did not, and when you answer to shareholders who keep the company afloat, you have to do hwats best and this is the best case scenario.

Paul, many compnies still call STL home, but the past decade, so many have left, like Ralston, the city just let them leave without a fight, is this leadership or civic pride? F#ck no it’s not, this is stupidity 101 at STL city hall. Until the region merges and puts strenghth in numbers and combines assets, this place will continue to slide but in a much faster fashion. Say what you want, but this is a huge loss, and like Detroit, one loss here two losses here and well…there you go, don’t tell me STL is not the next Detroit.

I have lived in St. Louis all of my life, have been drinking AB products for as long as i have been allowed to do so. There is no way that i will drink AB/InBev products. There is nothing left in this city that is ours anymore. Give AB/InBev a couple of years, the tours at the brewery will be shut down, Grant’s Farm will be closed, all of the union workers, FIRED. kiss that sweet benefits package goodbye guys.

They will play nice for a year or two and slowly but surely get out of our dying city ASAP. Our country just doens’t seem to care that we are selling everything off to foreign entities that can’t stand us to begin with. They want our land and business’s because our money is so down right now. They spent 50 Billion of OUR money, That’s only 30 or 40 Billion of their money. They are going to recoup their “loss” in less than 4 years. We need to stop whoring out what is ours in this country for money. We are already whores to the world for oil, if we don’t stop this cycle now, we won’t have anything left to sell off.

To quote from North Dallas Forth: “Whenever I say its a business they tell me its only a game. Whenever I say its only a game, they tell me its a business.” Yeah, business is business. And I undertstand that the Board got an offer they can’t refuse. But more than just the stockholders are affected by this decision, and it doesn’t bode well for the rest of us. So Bravo on the deal, but don’t expect a note of congratulations from me.

If you think the economy is bad now, wait until InBev starts cutting jobs and lowering the quality. I don’t drink beer, but I can’t help but feel something really, really bad is underway.

Rick Martin,

Sure. Drink a beer in St. Louis that was so anti-union for so long. Makes sense to me.

David “the Shareholder”

You must be a moron, you don’t want $70 a share but would rather have a $46 dollar stock doing sheet is thst what your saying? You must be a lunch bucket employee cause what you said makes zero sense. Your vote will not mean sheet trust me, I am voting in favor and so are the many gazzilionaires out there who will to. You obvioulsy must love living hand to mouth. Dumbest thing I have heard all night. I’m sure you really are a shareholder.

Fuxks–Have you been to Detroit? Have you been to St. Louis? There’s not even a comparison. Look at economic statistics such as unemployment, foreclosures, change in home price, education of the population (% with college degrees, etc.)–there’s no comparison.

Losing one company does not change that fact. Also, how do you think the taxes go down significantly? They’ll still own all of the land and be responsible for the property taxes. The only lost revenue will be the 1% income tax lost. Unless you believe our city will never create jobs again after doing so for the last two hundred years, that is just a temporary loss of taxes.

City Hall can do a better job, and they should do so. But they aren’t destroying the city like you seem to think. They only oversee so much of what goes on here–look at all of the companies in places like Clayton, Earth City, or O’Fallon.

As a supporter of AB over the years, I can say I enjoyed, & will continue to enjoy their products and savy marketing. The products & marketing will be the same. As for the manufacturing & managment side of the company, I am not sure what to think.

But…for all those saddened by this buyout & “renting” of America, there are some things you need to realize about America & where our ancestors came from. America was settled by people wanting freedom, and our country participates in the global economy, just like most of the rest of the world, which allows everyone from indiviuals to companies to choose what, where, and who to buy things from. That’s the way of business these days, & there is no looking back.

If America wants to rid themselves of the opposition across seas, they need to start supporting themselves more often, spending less on high-end clothing manufactured in foreign countries, accpeting the fact goods in the USA cost more because of our labor standards for our employees, & spend less on crazy iconic items that do nothing more than grow Hannah Montana, or any other celebrity bank account larger than belief.

It’s a sad in St.Louis. Not only have we lost an AMERICAN icon but I’m disgusted by the corporate greed that runs rampant in this day and age. I don’t even like Bud Light but I hate to see the loss of middle class jobs that will be affected by this takeover not to mention the revenues and profits that will ultimately now end up outside of the United States.

InBev is not known for it’s charity. They will not do great things for our community other than shink the job market and lower morale. They will not save our schools, donate to local charities, or generally make nice with the community. Check their track record. My sympathies to the employees of AB (that don’t get laid off) who will have to work for such a bastard of company.

Time to start drinking Schlaffly!

To me, its a feeling of betryal. There was always a unique relationship of loyalty between AB and St. Louis. My friends from out of town were always surprised at how much of a company town this is and how loyal everyone (including non-drinkers) were to the brewery. And AB was extremely generous to St. Louis. For the brewery to be sold to dreaded outsiders feels like I lost a friend. I know its silly and irrational, but that’s that way it feels. And it seems as if I’m not alone. Down deep, I know that business is business, but it never felt that way with AB before now.

I fell in love with St. Louis when I was six, and back then it was ugly even (very industrial looking to a kid)! But I still loved visiting every year with my family, my dad would take us to all the hotspots (not just the amusement parks) and you really had to get deep into the city to really get to know it. I told my mother when I was six while jumping on the couch at home after a trip to STL “when I grow up I am moving to St. Louis, MO and I will live in the arch!” Well that was almost 25 years ago…and while I do not live in the arch I DO live here in good old St. Louis! I hate what is happening to STL right now, but you have to be open to the fact that it is happening EVERYWHERE in the US. I did not fall in love with AB when I was six, I fell in love with the people and pride of STL. Yeah dammit we still have the Cards, Ted Drewes and other famous STL companies, just because the big fish was caught does not mean the city is stagnant. I love the people here, I love the pride we have in STL - don’t give up on this city! I have dealt with INBEV before while working for an importer, the horror stories we hear - well about half of them are true…but it will not kill the city! In a few years things that might be bumped out of whack will correct themselves. Also, I would have been more proud of AB if they were still “family owned”. This sucks, I know - but AB does not make the city, YOU DO, and furthermore we have other things that we as a great midwestern city can be proud of. And as for the loss of charity donations from AB, they averaged what 13 mil? Well, lets be a community and pick up the tab and show AB / INBEV that we do not need them to thrive in our city! Oh, and yes if everyone gave just a little we could actually average 13 mil on our own. Estimated current Population 2,866,517 strong and if each of us gave just 5 bucks in one year we could outdo AB’s donatons easy…in just one year I am sure even the poorest citizen could squeeze out 5 bucks. I know it ain’t gonna happen just like that - but realize that all of us are still proud and we can take care ourselves with or without AB. Besides, nothing is American in this country anymore- only the Americans so be proud of what we have left! I STILL LOVE YOU STL and I will do my part to help maintain our pride!

grapeape–where does this idea come from that we’re going to sell our entire nation? First, we were going to sell it all to Japan in the 1980’s. Now, because all three beer companies got taken over, IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!

I think it takes a vast amount of naivete to suggest that type of thing. We continue to have the largest economy in the world with strong companies that will continue to make us leaders in the world economy.

A-B was not a leader, and it was gobbled up as a result. It had multiple opportunities to expand, and it didn’t take them.

Most midsize companies are faced with a choice: grow, or get bought. A-B didn’t grow, so it was bought.

I also think your grasp of why the difference in value between the Euro and the Dollar allows them to make this deal is lacking. Our currency is worth over 100 times as much as the Japanese Yen. By your logic, we should own everything in that darn country. What matters is what that currency buys in the local market and how this is expected to change over time.

There is no such thing as a merger that is good for both companies.; One gets eaten up, that’s just how it works.
5 years from now the AB footprint on marketing and the people who buy Budweiser will be totally different.
Goodbye Clydesdales.

To Stan Smith (10:33) “The shareholders are the ones who put their hard-earned money at risk….” People who invested in A-B are not risk-takers, and I’m one of them. If anything, A-B was about as safe as putting your money in a safe-deposit box for many years. Yes, it has been stagnant for years now. So, are there any risk-takers still holding shares? Well, maybe the people who jumped on the rumor and bought in the $50’s a few weeks ago.

An investor really going out on a limb would have sold some time ago and bought a trendy stock. Owning A-B is a longer-term venture, not a day-trader-style investment. Too bad there will be one less solid place to invest now. I was sad to see how the last few weeks played out. It was nothing more than a greedy frenzy.

Paul,

We can talk Clayton and E city all day. that’s all STL has, it’s the burbs. Lets talk city and with all the compnies who have left and replaced the jobs with entry level phone answering jobs. Heck E City and Mastercard, yeah 2K jobs, all that pay $10 an hour answering you guessed it phones. We will talk city and the one thing Detroit has is a county with 4 milion people and not a setup like STL. Trust me, STL is indeed the next Detroit, and this takeover will illustrate that over time. But when talking city Paul, you town is flatlining friend.

I have been to Detroit, and grew up in STL and left after college causs the boredom would have killed me there. Place sucks and most will agree with that. Burbs are nice but their nice everywhere, even Detroit, but city to city, STL is a sheety as it gets.

Dear TheMINGE, I am crying with you in my beer, my friend. But your sad news is even sadder these days: American Airlines, which as you reported cut flights “from 500+ to 200,” is now cutting way further than that. The June 25, 2008 STLtoday.com article “American cuts 43 flights at Lambert” reports that American’s flights have now fallen to only 145 per day, and as of this November American will cut it further, to only 116 daily flights. It was a little stretch when I called STL an American “hub” when they had 200 flights, but with 116, that’s barely more than a focus city. I guess I should stop calling STL a hub. I imagine Southwest almost has more flights than American here!

To TKP: I hear you, too! I agree how sad that a company from puny little Belgium bought an American icon. But unfortunately, your comments are right: there are no direct flights from STL to Belgiumm, and thanks to American Airlines we have no flights to any city in Europe, not even seasonal summer service to London. On a related note, I believe that St. Louis is the largest US city without nonstop service to London. What really annoys me about this is that the smallest metro area with nonstop flights to London: Raleigh-Durham, NC, with a population of only 1 million (versus 2.8 million for St. Louis), which has daily non-stop flights by none other than American Airlines! What the heck gives?!? Does American Airlines hate St. Louis? I guess the InBEV executives will have to fly from Belgium, transfer planes in London, fly to Chicago, change planes again, then head to St. Louis. I’d say they might be able to fly nonstop from Belgium to JFK, then change plans and fly to St. Louis, but oh, American just announced they’re cutting flights from JFK to STL, too. Jeez!

Back to this forum subject: I don’t for one second doubt that Anheuser-Busch loves St. Louis, and I hope that they wield enough influence to see that Anheuser-Busch Inbev treats us well, too.

Vince–Do you honestly believe AB’s consumers will be that different five years down the road? I don’t.

I’m sure the shareholders are happy. I feel sorry for the employees of AB, though. Brace for the inevitable stream of cost cutting maneuvers. “Finding efficiencies” is what they will call it. I wonder what they will try to out source first?

Nice post Biffy. I hope the city bounces back but I have been waiting 40 years for that to happen.

Dude, if STL is so bad, how come you are spending so much time on P-D website? Aren’t you dying of boredom?

Missouri, sorry to say, but this is what you get. You all helped elect Bush, two times. His horrible economic policies have greatly contributed to the decline of the U.S. Dollar. This is the reason A-B was bought by foreigners. The same thing is happening to several other large companies in the U.S.
Bush borrowed trillions of dollars to pay for his useless war in Iraq. He has borrowed more money than all other U.S. Presidents combined. If you borrowed a ton of money and offered no plan to pay it back, your credit rating would decline, just like the U.S. Dollar has. It’s really that simple. So basically, this European company was able to bu A-B for 60% of what it would of cost them BEFORE Bush took office and the Dollar tanked.
Thanks Missouri. By electing Bush, you brought this on yourself.

A broken neck. Bankruptcy. And now A-B is sold to Belgium. Honestly, how much worse can it get for poor old Ed McMahon! Hi-o!

Inbev to keep A-B in St. louis? Let’s all think back to a small airline named TWA that was gobbled up by AA. Oh yeah, AA promised to keep TWA a hub in St. Louis, well; whomever has flown in the past 5 years know what I am talking about. So long A-B!!

Most of us ( including me ) are unhappy about seeing our “Crown Jewel” of Saint Louis being surrendered to an outsider. Some of us may want to blame the current or past management for our perceived loss, but we all have a hand in this as well.
We have to look in the mirror of how we have managed our country and it’s resources. We have for many years lived the good life of cheap energy, and cheap goods, becoming so in debt to outsiders, that we are now waking up to the thunder inside our own head following an evening over-indulgence in our favorite local beverage.
I think the reason the A-B Management “may have been too conservative” is that the value of our dollar has become so weak, that buying too much – too quickly may have made the stock more vulnerable to a $35/share deal. Still not good. The value of the company may have been too expensive for Inbev had we all not “urinated away” the value of our own dollar by our own spending habbits.
When we as a country of people begin to live, and force our Government to live within and protect the boundary of what we can pay back in a reasonable amount of time, then our businesses will thrive, and our country will heal its financial wounds. None of us can afford to borrow $700 Billion per year in oil alone, not to mention all the other products we borrow from our kids inheritance to pay for disposable goods and services.
If you want to boycott something that makes a difference, boycott foreign -oil, TV’s, clothes, shoes, cars, Labor, etc., and start demanding the elected people do something that will resolve the many insolvent activities we all participate in by our own action or inaction.
Billy Poobah - St. Peters

Stan Smith… Sounds like you were raised with a silver spoon in your mouth. No doubt a pampered pup, living off the labor of others.

Ooh, just to clarify things, the “Scott” wondering about what the Europeans think of St. Louis is NOT ME, even though I did slam our conservative thinking in an earlier post. I agree, however, with this “Scott” that St. Louis has a terrible school system but I imagine it’s probably not much different than the inner city school system of most major US cities. He brings up a good point that we have elected our leaders, so we have only ourselves to blame. We’ve have a long legacy of stupid decisions based on our narrow-minded, short-sighted, parochial, conservative mindset. Too bad we won’t change. So I guess we’ll just keep suffering.

If I’m going to drink a foreign beer, it’s gonna be a Guiness.

Fred–Take off the tin foil hat. The President only has so much of an impact on the US Economy. The vast majority of what happens in the country isn’t controlled by the government. We tend to give them too much credit when times are good and too much blame when it goes South.

We can debate the strong or weak dollar some other time, but it’s actually not a bad thing for blue collar workers–it makes our products cheaper overseas. It sure helps out the folks over at Boeing when they try to sell something outside of the US. It’s not like it’s just a bad thing for the dollar to be low.

JRJR–A-B’s biggest shareholders are institutional investors. Mutual funds, pension plans, et al aren’t day-traders because they have so much money to invest. It’s impossible to sell or buy sizable chunks of stock without moving the market.

Some of those groups have a focus (say, wanting dividends, wanting to own very large stocks, targeting a non-cyclical business) that led them to invest in A-B. That didn’t lead them to forget their job, which is to maximize return.

Want a big block of cheese to go with your whine? AB was headed to you local sewar plant. Lost a good deal of market share to not only Miller/Coors… imports and micro-brews were slapping them like a red-head step child. And the Busch Family…more dysfunctional than a Michael Jackson Day Care Center. Their new name….”Toast”

The AB directors are traitors!! Sell out for the Almighty dollar a city that has been more than gracious to you,the citizens helped make you the largest brewery in the WORLD, the Clydesdales a beautiful symbol of this city and the brewery, and you sold your soul to some company in Europe??!! This is big-time BAAADDD for St.Louis and it’s people. It certainly fully illustrates the sad state the city and it’s people are in to allow such a thing to happen. Dear God, please wake up St. Louisan’s from allowing themselves and their city to be ruined by foreign investors. I hope and pray that St. Louis will see a new and brighter day someday soon, but it looks like they’ll pay the price first, before that new day comes.

Hate to break it to everyone but not only AB employees will be affected by the buyout. The advertising will not stay the same! Every advertising agency in town feeds of some work by Anheuser-Busch. Not to mention printers, distributors, etc. The list of companies and occupations that will be impacted is quite long. Less jobs in a less-than-good ecconomy. Just what everyone needs.

Is Raymond Burke behind this somehow?

Mrs. Stethem–or maybe the A-B directors actually did their job and acted in the interests of the shareholders that they, as the board, are supposed to represent?

It is just beyond my intellect and understanding how anyone was or is a blue colloar worker or middle-class could support George Bush or any Republican in recent history here.

I wonder if Missourians are going to wake up and open their eyes up to the reason why Missouri as every other state in the U.S. is and will be facing financial perils. Eyes have been turned onto all the wrong things for a very long time, while your eyes were focused on what you IMAGINED the problems were, (quotas, free hand-outs, equal rights admendment, construction jobs, etc… The very ones who had your attention focused on these things were raping you without you seeing it. They, the Republicans got your votes because they were going to end all these hand-outs to these underserving groups, right?

Look at all the energy placed into these very issues just a short time ago when jobs seemed plentiful and no end to our great economy. Now, notice how much non-issues they have becoming, your jobs are disappearing. No one will have these very jobs that ones have successufully locked others out of.

Between companies closings and America companies looking so good to foreign investors because of our weak dollar, some of you will finally learn Who your one and only true source really is. It is so sad seeing whats ahead. There are still many out there who are depending on the false security of their wealth and will be brought down to nothing.

I just pray that people will open their eyes and stop listening to and believing corrupted hearted fools with motives.

Everyone involved in this deal seems to have more money than they will ever need so I wonder what the real motivation for this takeover is. I think self delusional power is the only possible answer as if shifting money from one company to the next is some savvy business accomplishment. Anyone who can count and listen to advice would be more than competent to pull these kind of deals off. I guess it’s time for all of the money handlers to jump into their piles of money and giggle as if what they do creates any real substance in this world.

Want a big block of cheese to go with your whine? AB was headed to you local sewar plant. Lost a good deal of market share to not only Miller/Coors… imports and micro-brews were slapping them like a red-head step child. And the Busch Family…more dysfunctional than a Michael Jackson Day Care Center. Their new name….”Toast”

Long live the king!
*chugs a schlafly*
anyone wanna place bets on when they roll out of town?

Long time Bud drinker. I just declared my independence from this foreign invader called InBev/Busch. Just went out and bought some Sam Adams and some Tommy Knocker Jack Whacker Wheat microbrew. I bought my last Budweiser on Thursday. My buddies and I are going to have a Boston Tea Party and dump the Bud and drink the SAM. They think they can make us keep drinking their swill and toe the company line. I say Bull****! In six months when this sale is supposed to go through, BUD isn’t going to be worth the paper this agreement is printed on. They thought these p***ed off Americans were not kidding. They called our bluff and now it’s time to BOYCOTT THE BUD and DRINK AMERICAN OWNED BEER. This is just the next step in this game. THIS IS JUST THE NEXT STEP!! BOYCOTT BUDWEISER FOR SIX MONTHS AND THE INVADERS WILL GLADLY HAND IT BACK TO THE U.S.!

I love how you thing, Bud Boycott. Probably not enough of us to have a real impact. But if we buy Bud, a lot less of it will be reinvested in St. Louis that it was before. It’ll probably go to some offshore acct. If we by Schlafly or some other local brew, at least the money will stay in town, and help employ people.

D. Walker–right, because making it harder to do business and increasing taxes is the way to save the blue collar worker. Maybe some of us middle class folks vote for Republicans because they understand that isn’t the case.

The bottom line is that as the economy changes, we’ve got to move with it. The American public has made it clear that they are willing to pay for foreign goods and services if they provide the right value. We succeed as a country by making sure that our products and services are better than theirs are, not because we make it harder for them to sell it here or because we force ourselves to only buy our own products when they don’t give us value as a consumer. This is all the Democrats propose to do. These proposals actually make us poorer as a result–they take value away from us.

You complain that things are suffering because of the weak dollar. The dollar is weak because we spend too much. Yet, this is exactly what Obama proposes to do. How, then, do you expect the Democrats to strengthen the dollar?

In any case, most of the economy isn’t controlled by the government, so there’s only so much the next President can do.

Hoya–or, God forbid, they just want more money than they already have? Sometimes a spade is a spade. Don’t overanalyze this.

I wish they would take down the 40 sign, they let us down, and I don’t want them anymore.

I cannot believe AB’s selling out!! Don’t they understand that this will not only be end of Bud but Inbev too? Bud drinkers will fall by the droves. I will not purchase it anymore. One of the largest group supporting AB are unions. Do you think they will buy a foreign beer? Not!!! Call it Anheuser Busch Inbev, so what? It will still be foreign owned.
Inbev is leveraging themselves out to purchase AB. They will not be able to pay back the loans. How does this help anyone? There was doubt if they could get the financing for $65 a share. Where will they get the money for $70 a share. This is a car crash in slow motion.
There was talk of Inbev not being able to buy AB since they sell to Cuba, which is embargoed. Can’t the Feds do something to stop this train wreck? Can’t someone find some sense in all of this? Where are the Inbev stock holders? Are they truly on board? Do they understand the risks?

As a former resident of STL who left when their company “mergered” my heart goes out to the people of STL. While I only lived there for a few years, STL is a terrfic city which has such potential. Unfortunately, the provencial attitudes of the “locals” have led to the city’s decline. Just look at the list of firms which have closed or been aquired over the past 15 years:

PET
Purina
AG Edwards
Edison Brothers
TWA
Furniture Brands
May Company
Allegiant Bank
Boatman’s Bank
Mercantile Bank

and now AB..

It’s only a matter of time before Schnucks or Dierbergs are acquired by SuperValue, Kroger or Royal Ahold.

who’s next??
Brown Shoe
Build a Bear
Peabody
Enterprise
Express Scripts

While InBev will promise to maintain a HQ here, we all know what that means… Talk to the folks at Macy’s, or AG Edwards are are now “with Wachovia”..

What is the leadership of Missouri and St. Louis doing to attract business to STL?

Scott, paul, and all of you multiple jims out there, save it. it appears the majority of us don’t have the means to accept this in open arms like you do. You are prob all have large amounts of stock in AB or you are inbev corp mouthpieces. I have been through 2 of these friendly mergers and both times I was thrown to the street. In your opinion I was ‘wastefull spending’. I am now learning a new trade on the state of MO ie your tax dollars. And I bet you all are pissed about that as well. None of you see human beings in this, just $. So suck one, because some of us really don’t want to hear it. Maybe you should all read some history and see what happens eventually when the working class keep getting crapped on, start w/ the french revolution. Research how well that worked for Louis XVI.
For those who don’t believe it, you should. I will NEVER buy AB again. I refuse to be extorted by threats. The AB workers are on borrowed time. I heard the same crap for 2 years. Macys was ‘ very commited’ to st louis and its headquarters. Terry Lundgren came here for a ribbon cutting and a great future for the city and compnay. It didn’t last 18 months. So F*** carlos and his greasy lies. AB workers, start to think about your future NOW. Don’t believe what they tell you, to many of us alllready did.

Cynthia–Coors and Miller didn’t tank when they were bought out; I have trouble believing A-B will tank just because a foreign company owns them.

The Cuban deal didn’t matter since they are a foreign company; it was a red herring.

InBev’s shareholders haven’t made a major fight against this. They would have spoken up by now if it were a big problem.

The Feds stopping this would be bizarre. They let Coors and Miller combine their US business. How can they stop A-B and InBev from merging here? InBev is less than 1% of the US market. There’s no anticompetitive advantage being gained by merging their operations.

Besides–why should the government tell people what to do with their property? The stockholders own the company. They can decide what they want to do with it as long as they follow the laws. They put up the money to the Busches to buy most of the company; if they want to sell it, it’s their choice.

For years, A-B has had a special relationship with St. Louis, and we could claim it as ours, and I am sad now that we can no longer do that. I fear for the institutions around our city that it supports, including our famous (and free) zoo, A-B employees, and for the morale and pride of this town. We keep struggling to thrive, but in the past two decades, so much that was a source of jobs, pride and unity to this town (TWA, McDonnell-Douglas, May Company, Fair St. Louis and Spirit of St. Louis Air Show, and now A-B) has gone away or been bought up. With this coming close behind the fumbled Centene/Ballpark Village deal, it has even more of a sting. I feel like I need to make a list of good things about St. Louis before I get too depressed and leave.

It’s a sad day to be a St. Louisan. I’m undecided if I am going to continue to drink A-B products. I know both sides of the argument, but right now I’m a little too sad to pick up a Bud Light and even drink my St. Louis Blues away. Time will tell how hard this will hit us, but it is sad to see this jewel in our crown fall out of our grasp. No, I don’t think Brito will give “The Godfather” treatment to the Clydesdales, but I don’t believe that he gives a damn about our workers or our town. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it all shakes out, but you can tell it’s already not going to be pretty. I hope the shareholders enjoy their extra dough, because nobody else here is celebrating this decision.

Where are the little stockholders? From what I have look at, you, the little stock holders have the main vote. There are blocks of this stock owned by people who have no stock in this city or the company other than the profit. Where are you? If you do not want this sale to happen, you need to form a voting block and stop it. The big guys only seem to own about 40% of the stock. You hold the rest. Get together and say NO!

If they take down that old flying eagle sign on highway 40 i think there will be a riot…

Definitely a bad thing, although it may take a decade to play out. InBev needed to move their HQ to the US for this to be palatable. Average Joe boycotts will mount (assuming they know what’s happened).

Jaco–I’m glad you’re learning a trade on my tax dollars. Hopefully, it leads to you finding a job and paying taxes on that income that dwarf what the state paid to train you. That’s a darn good return on my investment in that case!

This is what we should be doing instead of blocking deals to save jobs. Blocking mergers leaves us with more people working to make the same amount of output–that’s inefficient. It leaves us with more expensive products for us as consumers. It also makes it harder for our companies to compete with their overseas competition.

We should be training those let go in these situations to make sure they can go on and do a new job. This makes our economy bigger and leaves us with the benefits of the merger–a more efficient company. That’s the best possible outcome for everyone.

It’s not like I cheer when people get fired or when I find out people are unemployed–I wish everyone had a job who wanted one. I just believe that it isn’t the job of corporations or our government to make sure that we all have the same job forever.

I’m quite familiar with the French Revolution. It has zero to do with your point unless you’re an advocate for overthrowing a democratically elected government, but it must have sounded good to you.

The loss of A-B to InBev is terrible for St. Louis and the American Brewing landscape. Bud has always been a beer brand I would support but now I’m torn. not supporting A-B hurts my city, but it helps InBev, who no matter what their promises are they have no personal interest in keeping St. Louis moving.

Cynthia–no, the institutional investors own over 60% of A-B per Yahoo Finance.

Jaco, I am not sure if I am the “Scott” you addressed your comments toward, but I do not own one damn share of A-B (wish I did) and was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. When I was born, my father was a truck driver and my mom was a secretary. I must admit I am doing better these days, but I spent today (Sunday) mowing the grass and doing laundry because I’m not some rich dude who can afford to hire someone to do it.

That being said, I do not expect handouts from anyone. If you want to get ahead in life, get an education. I wish I had gotten a degree in computer network engineering or computer graphics, but I am too old to bother with it now.

So I could have done better in life, like you probably could have, but I am not bitter like you are because it’s a choice I made.

And why i everyone coming down hard on the board of A-B? They fought like hell, and when they realized they couldn’t win, they salvaged the best they could get, which is THEIR JOB for which they are legally bound to do.

Whoever the guys are pushing this Boston Beer thing, Sam Adams is a public company like all the others, and I believe last time I checked all their beer was contract brewed in other places, up until recently when they built in a token brewery. I believe that most of their beer is still contract brewed, but I may be wrong on that one.

Scott–you’re right that much of Boston Beer’s product is contract brewed by a non-US company.

My family has been a retailer of AB products for over 50 years and I offer these views:

1.) AB has been struggling with new product introductions and innovation for quite some time, in other words, AB has become stagnant. I encouner this on a regular basis as the AB “big-wigs” saunter into our stores to survey the competition. I am regularly criticized by these fellows as to why I have so much “door space” devoted to micro-brews and regional craft breweries.

2.) The general public now has so many other products to enjoy because of the availability of imported and micro-brews. I can recall a time when the choices were Budweiser, Coors, Miller, Schlitz, Olympia, Falstaff and Hamms. The only imported beer was Lowenbrau which was imported by Miller. I don’t think any one would want to lessen the choices we currently enjoy.

3.) The consolidation of the brewing industry has been actively occuring for several decades and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries has been quite active in mergers and acquisitions. Spend some time on Wikipedia for some good reading about all of the changes in the industry for a good perspective on the AB-InBev deal.

4.) The is a renaissance in the brewing industry in the good ole USofA. It is called craft brews or micro-brews. Support these guys! AB did not just open 12 gigantic breweries overnight, it took time and patience and a following of devoted patrons. Become a devoted patron of the nearest, locally owned and operated craft brewery. I bet that you will find that your palate will actually be awakened by what a real beer should taste like.

Overall, I am saddened that another Americon icon falls to foreign ownership and I feel for the employees that may encounter hardships and an unknown future. On the flip side, we, the beer consuming public can do something about it by supporting and purchasing locally made products from the “little guys”.

So to all of you loyal beer drinkers of whatever brand…..I challenge you to research your favorite beer, find out who actually owns the company and if necessary make a change to an American owned brand.

If A-B hadn’t dumbed down their beer for the last 10+ years, they would have had a fighting chance to stay independent.

Busch has admitted they have reduced the hop profile of Budweiser for many years, smugly thinking that they were appealing to a wider audience by eliminating any “bitter aftertaste.” But legions of craft beer drinkers have proven otherwise; i.e., that people are hungry for stronger flavors and distinctive products.

Busch could have led this burgeoning market, and moved the Budweiser brand (including more full-flavored spinoffs) into the new beer millenium. As it is, Budweiser is a lackluster flagship brand, propped up by mega-advertising & marketing, that has no real value to anyone.

One visit to Portland, Oregon can confirm this universal truth about beer in America. On any given day, an astonishing array of fresh local beers are available for an eager public to try and to embrace.

A-B, by pandering to the lowest common denominator, ultimately helped seal its own doom. Now the fading brand will be peddled with other nameless, faceless brands worldwide, propped up by the InBev machine but not really hitting any sweet spot of the market.

A-B missed other, more appealing, opportunities to enter the global market by being too conservative in its business ventures. They have no one to blame but themselves. I worry for A-B employees, from brewers, to secretaries, to board members, and workers at Sea World and Busch Gardens. What will happen to them when InBev, notorious for cost-cutting, has to make up the extra $5/share? Countless people will be without jobs.

I’m a shareholder, and I oppose this takeover. I resent those of you on this board who implicate me and other shareholders in this decision. This decision was made by the 13 members of the board, not the shareholders. Please make yourself more aware of how business at this scale works before making accusations.

For those of you who plan to boycott, please remember that no major American brewery remains. SABMiller bought Coors, and InBev bought A-B. Unless you plan to drink exclusively local microbrews, your money is going to a company overseas. Boycott if you want, but please be aware that most large breweries have consolidated into massive global companies.

Farewell to another St. Louis-based company—the one I never believed would leave.

Adolphus Busch is spinning in his grave

I’m not a AB drinker but living in St Louis I did love the fact that there was this piece of iconic Americana in the city. When I look at the history of St Louis and brewing in general I think this will go down as one of the biggest mistakes ever for AB-InBev, St Louis and America. When GM closes down at the end of the year I really can’t think of what this country will have left. In the meantime support your other local breweries. There are some truly great breweries here and I think that Schalfly’s really has the potential to explode now and grow exponentially.

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BREWERIES!!!

When I heard the news this evening that Anheuser Busch accepted the offer my heart sank and I felt ill. This is truly one of the saddest things to have ever happened to this fine city. It is a true shame that the board that showed so much courage and looked to be geared up to fight this thing to the death folded under pressure and became a board of pure cowards. They have forgotten about everything exept how much money they will all make. I am very dissapointed with A-B’s so called CEO August Busch. His actions were that of pure greed and cowardness. Adolphus, Augustus I, and all of the trailblazers of this company are turning over in their graves. I will say this once and for all. Carlos Brito YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN OUR CITY! you are no hero, no public servant, and no friend of St. Louis. So say goodbye to the clydestales, say goodbye to the charitable events and foundations, say goodbye to the happiness we once had, and say goodbye to this brewery that we could once call ours.

They better take down all those damned “Great American Lager” signs because that is false advertising now. Is Warren Buffett A.K.A. Gordon Geico going to show his face around St. Louis anytime soon? By the way, if you have Geico insurance, dump it and by State Farm instead. It’s a lot better insurance company than the Buffett owned Geico. Buffett sold St. Louis out, now I think St. Louisans should reciprocate in turn.

Perhaps the Board did what they were supposed to do this weekend, but did they do their jobs well the past several years?

Positioning the company for a takeover is an interesting strategy for maximizing shareholder value.

I suppose congratulations is in order for squeezing out that extra five bucks.

If “St. Louisans” really supported St. Louis, they’d live in St. Louis rather than gank its resources and amenities. (See the Cardinals, The Muny, Forest Park, etc.) The city’s willful disintegration makes its outrage at losing AB comical. About 300,000 people are justified in being upset as far as the deal pertains to its community. Everyone else is just posing, whether they accept that or not.

Doesn’t matter what any of us think. It’s all about the money. Loyalty has taken a back seat to greed, as it so often does.

Remember that grinning fellow with the red Stetson riding the Budweiser wagon at the old Busch Stadium (Gussie Busch)? That mournful wail you hear is Gussie spinning in his grave.

Finally, the incentive to cut back my drinking and lose weight.

Reminds me of the stories of old man Russ, who owned Chippewa Glass on Gravois. He would tell us for hours about watching Auggie Busch riding in his horse and buggy when Gravois was a dirt road. Bevo mill would be the halfway point to stop and have dinner and cocktails. I myself, don’t know how long Gravois has been a paved road, but this is just some of the history of AB. Many, many years of a St. Louis Icon. Finished with a helicopter, couple airplanes, and a ball point pen. And he treaded on a dirt or muddy road every day.

I remember sitting in the stands of the real Busch stadium as a kid, watching as Lou Brock retired from the game. Gussie brought a new boat and car on the field to give to the connsummate base stealer. As he bade farewell to his friend, he cried for the loss and we cried with him as we are crying now. To those of you who feel that you live in a nation of whiners and that we are whining now, I invite you to espouse your positions loudly and in public. I’m sure the response you will get will be well thought out, albeit sudden: another trademark of St. Louis that will not go away.

Like every corporate acquisition, the new company is going to make things sound like nothing is going to change, and all will be good or better. Unfortunately this is hardly ever the case. A-B’s employees are now going to suffer the changes to their benefits and salaries, which will take away from their company loyalty; any resistance will likely encourage InBev to move out of town.

I personally no longer have an urge to buy A-B anymore. Not St. Louis; NOT AMERICAN. I’ll be stocking up on AMERICAN craft brews.

Thier new corporate motto -

This pinkslip is for you

Sad to see the selling of America to foreign interests, the logo Made in America is not saying much anymore, since the company maybe located in America but the profits are going to a foreign land. I hope everytinhg works out well for the current employees and for the charities that AB supported, jobs and donations will be the first to go for this new entity.

Perhaps the St Louis local govt and corporate influence should embrace Mr Brito and lure the InBev corp from Belgium to St. Louis? The cost of doing business in euros is arguably more than in St. Louis/American dollars and the geographic advantage to capture the higher growth Latin America markets are greater in St. Louis than Brussels as well. St Louis should be more aggressive and make St Louis the InBev world headquarters and the center of the international beverage industry universe. That is the challenge and more reflective of the current international economic environment.

Do you people think InBev bought AB for the sole purpose of closing down plants and firing people? They bought the plant to sell beer and they think they can sell more beer than the current management. It’s that simple. Have some common sense. And wake up and smell the hops - why no one is criticizing (except for me) August Busch III’s failure ten years ago to buy the companies that eventually formed AmBev. His global head-in-the-sand mentality set AB up to be acquired, along with the stupid decision to have the board elections at one time instead of staggered. AB set this up last year. They allowed 130 InBev observers last fall to come into the plant to see what was going on. You think Boeing would let 130 Northrup Grumman observers come into see how they’d build a tanker? AB IV is a joke of a CEO, he couldn’t hold Carlos Brito’s jock strap. Maybe AB IV can go to Stanford to learn how he blind-sided his own company. WAKE UP ST. LOUIS. ANHEUSER BUSCH IS NOT THE IDEAL MODEL OF BUSINESS OPERATIONS IN THE 21ST CENTURY. THEY HAD THE CHANCE TO BUY AMBEV AND INTERBREW YEARS AGO AND FAILED TO DO SO. BLAME AB III FOR THIS.

Good Point Scott Simon, AB blew some great chances, It still sucks for us St. Louisans, I’ll still drink Bud and hope for the best until they shutter the brewery downtown, if and when they do that, is when I’ll quit drinking, It has been a hell of a negative year in St. Louis so far, I hope things get better soon.

How sad that another American giant has fallen victim to the almighty dollar. I know business is business, but had I been an AB stockholder, I would have let them know that, in my opinion, sometimes the American way means more than making a buck when the best interest of the community is at stake.

Made in China
Made in Mexico
Made in India
Owned by Belgium

When will it end?

Pouring out the Bud Light in my fridge and heading to the store to find a a new brand. My Dad gave 20 years to those greedy shareholders and now what happens to all those who gave so much and worked so hard?

Good bye michelob, hello samuel adams.

You geniuses pouring out your Bud…

That’ll show ‘em!

Scott - “Do you people think InBev bought AB for the sole purpose of closing down plants and firing people?”

More then likely - it has already been stated that 1.4 billion dollars will be cut from AB’s costs - this could be about 10,000 100K jobs that are removed, stopping donations, closing down plants, etc.

I doubt that the first will happen - the 100K jobs are probably secure. The ones that need to be concerned are the brewery worker, the organizations that depend on the donations made by AB. These are the ones that will need to look for other forms of income.

The sellout of corporate america to foreign holdings is never a good thing for the country. Very few major coprorations are 100 percent americian owned anymore. In the end the people who struggle every day with the rising costs, the defalted housing market, the lack of employement opertunities are going to be the ones that are hurt.

As long as we allow corporations the same rights as citizens, this is the sickening fruit that grows. We have had an almost unrelenting assault on the blue-collar in America for the past 30 years. Saint Louis has lost a great contributor. What Marx and Engels said so long ago seems true; what is good for business is bad for you.

The bad news: A great old American company gets bought by “outsiders.” (I wonder if the Brits whined when Jaguar got bought by Ford, or Renault and Nissan “merged.”) I hope the workers make out (But they probably won’t; not with Inbev’s reputation for cutting costs. Say goodbye to jobs and Bud’s HUGE ad budget.

The good news: That there are hundreds of great American micro-brews out there that make Bud and Miller seem like carbonated water. Sure, Bud spills more beer in a day than all the little guys make in a year, but what a product. If you’re into buying American, you’re in for a pleasant surprise.

Good or bad deal? I have no informed insight. But now the news anchors can devote more airtime to telling us how high gas prices are….and how high they’re going to go!

im a coors man now camt belive they did this just another sign that america is fadding away

The lesson is that the world has recently changed in today’s fast-changing global world. Long live the real hometown breweries– Schlafly, Rolla, Cahokia. Hopefully they will capitalize on AB’s mistakes, and grow stronger than Fenton and Hazelwood. Well that was almost 25 years ago and some of you will finally learn who your one and only true source really is. If you loaned money and offered no plan to spend it , your credit rating would decline, just like the Japanese Yen has. I know it ain’t gonna happen just like that - but realize that all of us are still proud and this is exactly what Obama proposes to do. I am doing better these days, but they were just trying to get a higher price.

Why can’t local craft brewers make a decent light lager beer? To heck with Budweiser…Busch is the best “St. Louis” style beer, and none of the little guys have ever made anything even vaguely drinkable.

I personally don’t care if the beer is made by the Pope, Dick Cheney, or your favorite grandma– if it isn’t good beer, it doesn’t matter. A-B being a division of InBev doesn’t bother me (it already was a division of A-B, Inc. which was more multinational than most people admit). I’m just afraid they’re going to mess up the beer!

Maybe someone can smuggle out the recipe before it goes bad.

It looks like August Busch 4 will get one of the 2 seats on the Inbev board. So much for him loosing his job. Me and my family are very worried about what this will do to St. Louis. I remember a time when you could open the help wanted section of the paper and find page after page of jobs. St. Louis has lost way to many jobs over the last 10 years. I worked in the banking industy and went through 3 mergers and we told the same thing nothing will change no one will be fired and 2weeks later come in and middle type managers were gone. I do not think this will be good for St. Louis, I guess only time will tell.

Yes it’s sad many jobs are goinig to be lost yet again. InBev has that history. However lets not forget that “shareholders” include alot of peoples pension portfolios, do you know whats in yours? Most people do not. Most plans allow you to decide what’s invested, do we all research companies to find out if they are American or not? Foreign investmaent in this country has risen because of the apathetic attitude of our citizens. We are to blame. But we can also fight back by not buying products manufactured in other countries (yes it’s possible) dont support stocks of companies like InBev in your portfolios. demand renewable energy from wind and solar and hydro to lessen our dependance on foreign oil. We can make a difference. Are you about ready?

“I will no long support Budweiser”… what a stupid statement.
The A-B employees need your support more now, than ever…

As in the rest of today’s corporate world, it’s all about the money. Products and services can be transferred to starving nations. Jobless complainers are unpatriotic.

This does not suprise me. Our country has been for sale for years, from Washington down to the local level and the business community is just following in their footsteps. Ever wonder why we are so attractive at this time? Look at the value of the dollar and you can see that the real cost to IN Bev is much less than is would have been before we went so far in debt that the dollar is worth much less than it was before we started building our debt. Somebody better straighten this mess out.

Good news, bad news? Good Deal or Bad? Good things, for a few cents, lots of money for some. Bad things, I will never drink another Bud again. Oh well. Who cares besides me. Bill Badman.

A zero sum game is when a person’s gains are exactly equal to the sum of other people’s losses. You gain at the expense of others. Defenders of Globalization love to point out that Capitalism is Not a zero sum game. When someone looses, someone else gains more than the loss – thereby creating market strength and growth. This is fine when losses in one State are offset by bigger gains in another State – the US still grows. The problem is when the US takes all the losses and all the the gains occur elsewhere – yes the world still grows – but at the expense of the US.

Will a Boycott be good? Well, there are certainly people arguing that we should continue to drink the beer as long as it’s at least brewed here. This is the mentality that makes productivity at manufacturing plants increase after a plant closure is announced. The people left are desperate to please their masters – somehow hoping their loyalty and hard work will stave off the inevitable. It never does. I suggest a better approach is to buy truly American beers – Schlafly, O’Fallon, Sam Adams, Coors, etc. Sure, St. Louis will still lose some (especially with the national brands instead of the local ones) but the US at large will Gain.

If we keep buying Bud now, the winners will be Europeans and South Americans – the US will loose. The King is dead, but American beer lives on!

Ok, here is what I don’t get. Why didn’t A-B and In-Bev just merge? A-B is worth about twice what In-Bev is. With the new company, each A-B shareholder gets 1 share of the new company, each In-Bev shareholder gets 1/2 share of the new company. You now have one company as you do now, but without a $50 billion debt! Here comes the axe…

Take a look at the auto industry and how the people of America sold out to the Japanese, the Auquine (spelling is wrong Sorry!)valley that produces almost all the vegetables in AMERICA is owned by foreigners, Television, Toys for kids, you name it its probably being made by a foreign conglomerate.

You as a nation of foolish AMERICAN’s have sold your childrens future’s out to these high dollar companies. next we’ll sell off States to the highest bidder, and then we will fight for control of everything from water rights, to price control. And then there will be war among our own, eventually against each other for food, and the nesessities of life. Just another third world country ran by the rich who will control your lives, and hold you in bondage.

You America have been DUPED by those College Bred brats who have ruled over us these past few years, and its TIME TO TAKE IT ALL BACK FROM THEM, NOW !

Wake up America it’s yours to lose (we are the power for now) Don’t be fooled for a minute by these idiots running for office either, none are qualified, and they damn well know it. Are these bafoons the best America has to offer? if so this country is in dire need of a Shake up of Government, and only You AMERICANS who Love AMERICA can change it.

I told you!
US citizens should wake up and see that global companies do not only exist in the USA.
A proud Belgian Stella lover!!

Done with AB. I read somewhere LEMP beer is now once again being brewed in St Louis City limits. I am all over it. Where can I get it? Where is it being brewed in St Louis?

GOODBY BUD HELLO SHAFLYS AND SAMUEL ADAMS I GUESS.

It’s a sad day to see an American icon go overseas, however, as the wife of an employee, we can only be optimistic and hope that there will be more opportunities for employees of AB. Please don’t boycott AB products, you’ll only be hurting the employees of AB who need their jobs.

It´s good, this deal will make St. Louis a global city, being the headquarter of the new global beer leader.

Whether there will be any bright side to the In-Bev takeover remains to be seen. Of course I’m saddened by it. But we should have seen this coming. All the A-B posturing was just intended to raise the stock price offer. Once it hit $70 per share, the deal was struck. I work for a company that provides legal compliance services for companies doing business in the US. Mergers, acquisitions, divestitures…it happens every day. Every day. More corportions than you can shake a stick at. How many people are being affected? God only knows. Having worked for a company that sold out (after closing operations in St Louis, Denver, and Cleveland to make the deal more attractive) I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end. Ultimately, it’s business and all business and there’s no room for sentimentality in the business world.

I would just like to remind folks that boycotting Busch products is ultimately only going to hurt your friends and neighbors who work for the brewery. As long as the jobs stay in St Louis, who really cares where the big bucks are going at the top of the heap? If In-Bev closes St Louis operations, then you can boycott.

One thing I found very interesting if not just a little unnerving. I waded through all the comments here and one thing that struck me was all the anger and frustration, not just about A-B but about the economy and life in general. People are feeling so betrayed and helpless. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see domestic violence take a dramatic upswing, or for rudeness and violence against strangers to increase. People are hurting and like dogs in pain, they’re going to lash out at anyone and anything. So sad. And rather frightening.

I know how you St Louisians feel this morning. I am from Liverpool, England and my beloved football club was bought up by two Americans about 2 years ago and they are proceeding to run it into the ground. They are runnign roughshod over our traditions and are siphoning the money they are making off the Premiership and investing it in their US sports team (Texas Rangers). Lets make a deal - we Europeans will keep our hands off your brewerys, if you Yanks keep yours off our football teams!

From experience, and as mentioned previously, give it a few years and check back on the structure of this “new” company, where it’s headquarters are located, and how many of the current employees are still employed. It’s the same old song…..

The only place this is a good thing is in the bank accounts of the larger shareholders. They see dollar signs - a new yacht, another mansion - not the devastating effect this will have on the company itself. Anheuser-Busch is a cornerstone of St. Louis…but now it has a big “SOLD” sign on it. (Or should it say “SOLD OUT”?) What’s next - the Arch?

From experience, and as mentioned previously, give it a few years and check back on the structure of this ”new” company, where it’s headquarters are located, and how many of the current employees are still employed. It’s the same old song…..

Well, its over. I will never buy another AB beer again. Ever!!! Screw Brito, InBev and the weak spined AB Board. I pray for the worst.

Works both ways Americans. How many local companies did you gobble up in foreign countries? And that includes AB taking over smaller breweries overseas. Works both ways.

This is the sadest day of my life. I am going from only AB to NONE ever again! I only pray that my actions some-how lead to the buy back, so I can taste the best beer once again. God Bless America, may some still keep face, while the others sell out.

I can no longer support the beer. The workers should look elsewhere fast, maybe our other small local beer compnay will take it up a notch. A very sad and depressing day, especially for all the charities in the area, you will feel great hardships next year.

Us as Americans have to fight back and understand we all have a patriotic responsibility to this country!! If we start showing these companies that we do not want their foreign ownership or their products. Then maybe someday they will stop taking interest in our companies, until then they will continue to buy them up because they know Americans will complain at first but in the end they know most Americans will continue to purchase foreign ownership product. However, for me I will take the NEW Great American Lager Samuel Adams Boston Lager!!

No more Bud for me either….Sorry St. Louis but I don’t support Foreign car manufacturers either, whether they’re built in the US or not….

Time to start drinking Sam Adams. If AB/IB wants my business they’ll have to earn it back by keeping their promises. As the victim of another recent major merger (ie takeover) in the St. Louis area, I’ve seen that these kind of promises are varely rarely kept.

Since it’s obvious that America is for sale, why not just sell the White House to the Saudi’s and get it over with? Anyone want to buy a slightly used (and slightly erratic) baseball team?

It feels ironic to me to be posting this on the no longer Pulitzer-owned PD.

If the Busch family owned so little stock, why did the “Bud Dud” August IV, who used company execs as his personal pimps, get to be CEO?

And remember that his father was on the board of Southwestern Bell and voted to move its HQ out of St. Louis.

Yeah, AB IV’s job will be saved, along with other top execs. It’ll be the mid-level execs in marketing and accounting and operations who will be gone in a very short time.

Don’t confuse company largesse with a love of St. Louis. AB did everything it did to sell beer, not out of civic pride. The days of keeping things in St. Louis because it was good for St. Louis were gone long ago, as any former D’Arcy Advertising people can tell you.

Nice job St. Louis…!!!!! Now all you have to do is sell the Rams and Cardinals and you will be the richest huckleberries on earth….!!!!!!

In 1978 I purchased 3 shares of A-B stock for $100. It was all the money that I had. I never thought of it as an investment. I simply wanted to be a part of the A-B family, the brewers of Budweiser, the beer that made me what I am today (but that’s a whole other story). I was proud to be able to say that I was part of the company. Without adding anything, that investment is now worth $10,000 but my pride is gone. I am deeply saddened for the emloyees of A-B, the city of St. Louis and for America. I doubt if I will be making any more pilgrimages to St. Louis. I don’t think that I could stand in front of Adolphus’ grave with my head held high. I don’t think that this sale is what Adolphus would have wanted. Adolphus and I have both been betrayed.

Having mentioned anger and frustration, let me expand a bit. My old employer had been in business for over a century. It was family owned, no publically traded stock. Profits were solidly in the black. My mom had worked there during WW II and after dad came home from the war, she got him hired on there. Later, my dad would get me hired on. Collectively, my family gave that company over 75 years of our lives. But the Grand Old Man died, leaving the business to his three offspring. Said offspring really didn’t want the business so they groomed it for sale, took their money and ran. Imagine how I felt to come home to my retired dad and say “I lost my job today” at the company he had given 37 years of his life to, the company that theoretically would provide from cradle to grave. As my father lay dying–I’m not making this up–came word that one of the three incredibly rich offspring had died, less than a year after the sale of the company. Guess he didn’t get to enjoy his newly obscene fortune too much. God forgive me for not shedding a tear. All I could think was “There is a God after all.”

I found another job. My current employer is my third in ten years and I only had to go to the initial interview. Bought out and then bought out again. For the most part not much has changed, just a different Logo on the building. Oh well. May the A-B employees fare as well!

I don’t even drink beer or alcohol but I’m sure Gussie Busch is turning over in his grave. It’s shameful what people will do for money. It’s not like they were hurting for money or anything. Don’t ever sell your heritage–your children’s children’s posterity–they never should have considered it. It’s so sad. There’s no amount of money in the world that would be able to replace the heritage, hard work, and dedication put into this business by the Busch family and to let it go to someone else, I just don’t understand it. It’s like they have no regard for Mr. Busch or the legacy this company holds. Like I said I don’t even drink beer but I just lost my mother and I’m proud to hold on to the things she has given me. I’d never ever sell them to anyone else. Why did you sell your father’s business? He never would have gone for it. They don’t have your passion for your product. They just want money for themselves and disguise it by making you think you’re going to get so much money. And we wonder why America’s economy is struggling? I have my own business and will until the day I die but I’d never sell it. What about your staff? The employees? You remember–the people that make this company work? It’s just sad. You shouldn’t let prosperity rule over posterity.

Hi, I’m from Leuven, Belgium.

I would say, relax guys. Inbev doesn’t buy local companies to move their headquarters or to change names. They do it primly to be able to use the distribution channel. They try to sell the special Belgian Beers trough this channel. Headquarters in Leuven are pretty small. They believe in local management. Look at all the other companies they’ve bought. None of them are managed from Leuven. Of course they’ll ask some return, but who wouldn’t.

that’s iam done so why do’nt we just sell the white house too

Will the last company to leave St. Louis please turn out the lights.

I am very saddened indeed for the blue collar workers that might lose their jobs. I could really care less for arrogant, overpaid boys club that has been running the show at AB for a long time. I am sure they will pull through just fine. I do not intend to boycott AB, because that will make the situation even worse.

Too bad little Augie worried more about appearing in commercials than minding the store. He never was very bright. But he does have nice hair.

Hey “Boston Beer Drinker”

Your beloved Sam Adams is not made in Beantown. The Sam Adams sold in STL is made in LaCrosse, WI under contract to Sam Adams. Not that it is bad beer - it’s fresher than stuff shipped in from the east coast

As a native of STL who no longer lives there this is a sad day for STL no doubt….As a African American female AB’s door have always been closed to (us). Now all of the lucky ones at AB who have worked there for generations will have to worry about losing their jobs.

Good Riddance AB Karma is a bitch….

Yes, it’s very sad that the US and St. Louis are losing an iconic business, but all you screaming about boycotts and such are really thinking about this the wrong way. The reason people buy foreign products is simply because they are better for whatever reason (the Honda gets better mileage and is better designed than a Chrysler, etc). Point is, AB had it’s opportunities to remain independent, but someone bigger and better capitalized was able to demonstrate an ability to better equip the company for the future in a global market (not just a US market).

Carlos Britto is going to make decisions that are simply the best for the company, the same that you would do if you owned it. If moving the HQ is the result of what’s best for the company, than that’s what will happen. Publicly owned businesses have a legal covenant to do what is best for the shareholders and only the shareholders. If you think that AB’s management or any of the mutual fund and institutional investors who truly “own” AB, have any other agenda, than you need a lesson in public ownership.

This is the way of our world, it grows and changes and at an ever increasingly dynamic pace. St. Louis is not becoming the next Detroit, but it’s also never going to be what it once was. Just like company consolidation, so to is city consolidation. There is a reason you see large businesses clustered in a few cities in North America. There are economies of scale, larger talent pools, favorable business regulation and infrastructure that benefit the businesses and people who work for them. St. Louis is not equipped to handle this and it’s pretty late in the game to get started.

You only hurt you’re friends and neighbors at AB by boycotting the products. If the new co fails, which it won’t, because honestly, on a few die hard St. Louis based people will actually boycott the beer. Most of the rest of the US does not really care that AB, or that St. Louis will be impacted, by a change in ownership. So, if you like what Bud tastes like, buy it, if you don’t, buy whatever floats your boat. St. Louis is a proud city that’s been beaten down some by several large business losses. This gives the city a new opportunity to define itself. Hopefully, the residents and leaders of St. Louis are able to understand this and take the opportunity to move on and adapt to the inevitable change our country and the world is facing.

This is a sad day for St. Louis. It will be hard to imagine AB not being a St. Louis company. However, as long as AB/InBev have operations here, we must support them. If they employ 5000 or even 3000 after the dust settles, we have to support them people. This is the reality of business in the year 2008. Examples like Boeing and Wachovia (so far), give us some hope, that INBEV will keep a huge operation here. Remember, we will also have 2 former AB board members on the new board. Hopefully, they can protect our interests here in St. Louis. INBEV obviously know what they are doing, so they must know not to destroy a great company by changing everything. Don’t get me wrong, I am not happy about the TAKEOVER, but we should all give it time and see where we are in 5 years. Boycotts will only hurt St. Louis and remaining AB employees. If they treat us like Federated did, I would support a boycott. Until that happens, support the remaining employees!!!

You go, Biffy!

I love St. Louis, too! I was born here, and I now live in the same neighborhood where I was raised. The sale of AB is not going to hurt this area as much as all the sell-outs who keep moving further and further out from the city. We can survive and revive, but WE have to do it–we can’t just whine about our losses.

When was the last time you were in the city (besides for a sports game)?

Who’s REALLY to blame? Come on, folks, let’s get working!

I love the USA as much as the next guy but something must be done about the American dollar. Such as VOTE FOR A DEMOCRATE. If we don’t we will continue to lose American company after company.
Sorry to all AB employees but I will never buy AB again. Lets face it, in a few short years AB/Inbev or whatever it is now will be out of St. Louis after cutting and cutting jobs.
And to those who say this will be good for AB by getting its products known over the world WAKE UP it is not AB anymore. The great beers we all know and love will sacrificed as Inbev makes perduction cuts. Maybe not by much but the taste will be sacrificed.
Good luck to all AB employees, St. Louis, and America. We all need it in these troubled times.

There’s always a few people who believe everything should be sacrificed in the name of the “free market,” but I wonder what does it mean to be American when many of us are not Americans at all, and those of us who are own no part of it. A nation is more than just an economy, and there is more to good business than the bottom line. I believe companies have an obligation to the nation and its people.

So in the name of the “free market” another domino falls.

I think that some people are thinking with their heart and not their head, in the end, it is all about the money and nothing else. INBEV will keep St. Louis home to the North American headquarters and the name “Budweiser” will not change. They did what any smart person would do and that is bought a successful company to become even more successful. I am sad to see another American company being gobbled up and especially another company in the St. Louis area. What we as St. Louisans should be angry with is the continuing “status quo” attitude of our city leaders and how they have always taken the easy way and never thought forward. Look around people, from the hole in the ground known as ballpark village, to the dome stadium that will have to be replaced sooner rather than later because they wanted to save a few bucks now, to an airport that spent over a billion dollars on a runway that very rarely ever sees a plane, while the inside of the airport pales in comparison to other airports in the country. Want to be mad at somebody, look to our leaders and ask them why they continue to sit and watch their city now being mentioned in the same breath as Wichita and Des Moines while other cities like Kansas City, Charlotte, and Jacksonville continue to grow and thrive.

This is a sad, sad day for St. Louis. It’s a bad deal for A-B, a bad deal for St. Louis and a bad deal for the nation. And shame on the traitor within the A-B family; I hope his little revenge thing makes him feel good and I hope he moves his sorry butt to Belgium where he might be welcome. I hope the greedy SOB shareholders are happy that they drove another nail in this city’s coffin. I pray for the loyal A-B employees across the nation. Their lives will change for the worse.

When the last American owned and operated company leaves, please turn out the lights. Those of us staying here will be doing our best to conserver the meager capital we have left.

Does this mean Cindy McCain will have to upgrade her private jet for trips to Belgium?

If this makes the Budweiser brand stronger and ensures the viability of the company, I don’t understand what the problem is. U.S. companies regularly buy firms based in other countries so why is everyone shocked when it happens here?

This hype about how Anheuser-Busch Cos. is now somehow different or how people will no longer purchase the product seems a bit narcissitic and xenophobic.

Its hard to believe Inbev gave $0 to charity last year. That’s asinine.

3gccqm6

In Bev borrowed the money to buy AB, so who loaned them the capitol, as that is truly who will own AB.

Rob name the last major us company to completely buy out another huge foreign company.

Dispite the bottom dollar i strongly believe american companies should have some pride in their country and product. Besides do you think the Busch family or the capitalist shareholders have trouble paying for gas or raising a family.

For those of you questioning the boycott. I am not boycotting AB products I am just shifting to other STL breweries. I am still supporting the local economy, it will just be in another form. Honestly, Bud products don’t taste any better than the others anyway.

Better or bitter for St.Louis? The taste of an A-B product will never be the same and St.Louis will never recover from the loss of another Fortune 500 company leaving. InBev can give us all the correct answers but in the end A-B is outta here. I hope the family members and friends of the Busch family are happy because the 1+ billion in cuts and the restructure of the organization will cost many people jobs, hopes and dreams. Sleep well Busch family most of us won’t.

I love supporting the company my brother works for, but as soon as Brito starts to reneg on his “commitment to St.Louis” I’ll be done with all of their products.

I do not trust the man and his “angry eyebrows”.

Dont american companies go to foreign countries? Dont Americans buy stock in foregin companies? Why shouldnt the be allowed to do the same?

I could care less who owns it as long as the jobs stay. A paycheck still pays the bills regardless of who is signing it. Unless its current employees plan to quit out of american pride. Ye right.

I can’t believe that people think blocking such trade practices will be a good thing for this country. Our stock market one of the things that make this nation strong? It keeps just a few people from having all the money in the country. It give people like me and you a chance to buy sell and trade to make a future for ourselves.

Do we really want the govt telling all of us when we can and cannot do with our money, to control if we can buy and sell stocks and to who? I thought the govt involving themselves in our live was a bad thing? Now its ok?

Will that really make this nation stronger?

I spoke with someone I know that works for Boston Beer (Sam Adams) because I saw on here that there was some question as to where their beer was brewed. Most of their beer (80%)is brewed in Cincinnati and a majority of the rest is brewed in their Lee High Valley brewery outside of Philly. They are brewing a small amount in the brewery they bought from AB after they bought Rolling Rock and closed that brewery down. So yes, Sam Adams is brewed in the U.S.

I predict that this sale of AB will end with STL burning to the ground. There will be anarchy in the streets. My only hope is that the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse be quick in their reaping of our poor souls.

Grow up people it’s a brewery not a Church or something else that might truly define your life. If your existance and mood all derive from the contents of a can it is time for you to get out a little bit more often or at least off the bar stool.

I HATE INBEV.
THE BUSCH GARDENS AND SEAWORLD PARKS ARE EXTREMLEY SUCCESSFUL, INBEV WILL BE STUPID IF THEY SELL THOSE.

The damn unions killed it . They can always sell the arch !

Bravo Brito!

Congrats to Inbev!

Inbev and Carlos Brito just bagged an American Icon for a slight Prem price. Brito and Inbev displayed the “changing of the guard” in terms of what will happen to many more American companies. We have become lazy and weak and this is what happens. Congrats to Carlos and Inbev for a wonderful feather in their cap.

The people of St. Louis did not cry when AB destroyed other US breweries.

Don’t expect the people outside of the St. Louis area to cry about this deal. And poeple of St. Louis - stop whining. What goes around comes around.

Doug -

Regarding Sam Adams and where it is brewed- LaCrosse, WI is in the US! And not too far from STL, right up the Mississippi.

I mean, are you kidding me? First of all, tsquare, if this city sucks so bad, Why don’t you leave? I am pretty sure this city would be just fine without your unloyal a**.

Saint Louis was founded on tradition and culture, and Anheuser Busch was a part of that. I will be the first to say I am devastated that this sale went through; it makes me sick to my stomach. However, I am a diehard St. Louis lover and I refuse to sell out my pride for this city because of this ’simply business’ deal. I second whoever said that it doesn’t really matter who counts the beans at the end of the day. First of all, now Brito is lining his pockets instead of top Anheuser Busch shareholders who probably weren’t STL based anyway. If you plan to hurt Brito and this new co. by never buying Bud again, you are doing nothing but hurting yourself, Saint Louis and all of the AB employees. The ONLY thing that will keep our brewery open and StL the headquarters is making sure that sales stay consistent here and that St. Louis makes damn sure that Brito realizes that AB is at home here.

As someone else said, what does the rest of the country care what happens to St. Louis? They are exactly right, no one is going to keep this city alive unless we do it ourselves. Keep your St. Louis pride and buy Anheuser Busch products because that is what will keep STL alive.

So, go buy a Bud and cross your fingers that August keeps Brito from cost cutting too much. The charitable orgs. that AB generously donates to will be the first to hurt from this if sales go down.

What sort of stupid question is this - “Will this be a good deal or a bad deal for St. Louis region?” As everyone knows, no matter how it is spun, this will hurt St. Louis, as well as the nation! I am sitting in Dallas this morning in a state of shock, trying to hold back tears! People down here fought hard by going to the save Budweiser website, as they did everywhere. I remember the many good times going to St. Louis and visiting the brewary, and now to know that everyone will be torn apart by these foreign scum, it is unbelieveable! The A-B directors should have fought to the end to keep these predators from destroying one of the last great things that we have in this country. St. Louis will never recover! All of the great things about A-B are now just history!

Of Course it is not good news and news that should not be welcomed by any St. Louisan much less any American. When will we wake up as a country and realize that every great icon is foreign owned? Most of the major landmarks in our great city of New York are owned by overseas interests. So why not sell out our last great icon in St Louis. If you think they will keep the Headquarters in downtown then you are very Naive! Once things get settled and the paperwork is signed you can bet your last shareholder stocks that in a cost cutting move, the HQ will be moved to another city. This is truely a SAD day in St Louis and American History.

Now that the “great American lager” has been sold to foreign interests, one has to wonder when the White House will be publicly sold next.

Now you know how Madison, Wisconsin people felt in May when Famous Footwear announced it was leaving for St. Louis leaving 500 people without jobs.

No one’s taken any jobs away from A-B yet.

When you say Invest-Bev,you say it all!New #1 company in St.Louis-St.Louis Crack and Whore Company-locations on almost any corner in the Lou

Let’s face it…they said this company gave 13 million to charity in a recent year. The drugs they sell do much more damages in health costs, car accidents, etc. You do the math. Addicts never do want to admit the costs of their drug habits. Yet, medical cannabis is still illegal in many states, despite the proven benefits. Time to evolve people!

What is InBev’s contribution to the culture and common good of St. Louis? I can quantify AB’s immense charitable and cultural investment.

As a former staff member at the Missouri Botanical Garden, I know what it meant to see Southwestern Bell leave St. Louis. Fewer executive’s making large contributions, reduced corporate gifts, fewer middle managers becoming members of the Garden, fewer and fewer event sponsorships… a diminishing contribution from a multitude of donor streams.

When your neighbor is the owner and CEO, he/she sees the value of investing in the community. Nestle, Boeing and now InBev. The view of doing good is vastly different from a distance. Like most corporations, the signing of big checks is done at the CEOs desk and that desk will far from sight of the Mississippi River.

This is a very good deal for shareholders. All the shareholders too. Not just Warren Buffet or a member of the Busch family, but mutual funds, pension plans, 401k plans, investment clubs, and a myriad of other investment tools used by the average American to help secure their retirement. The Buffet’s of the world will take this capital and reinvestment in other companies, allowing them the finances to build a new plant, or upgrade equipment, or start a new training program. The money raised by this, from a foreign company, will be sunk back into hundreds of other American companies as reinvestments. God Bless America and hooray for capitalism!

It times for us to move on. This is a done deal. Politicians or government regulators could not have stop this deal. Anheuser-Busch put themselves in a position for a hostile takeover. Had anyone thought about all the other companies/countries that already own a part of the so called “American Dream’. This is business beyond most of our understanding and we should not allow ourselves to be duped by unscrupulous
persons who are trying to make a name for themselves or monies off our emotions. I’m not a big ‘beer’ drinker, however I do appreciate a good
cold ‘Michelob’ every now and then, and will continue to enjoy the good taste of Anheuser-Busch Inbev products.

Paging Jack Taylor…please, put in an offer for Grant’s farm. We need to keep in free and local.

Oh, and to those calling for a boycott, I agree with whoever mentioned waiting to boycott until the jobs are cut and the factories are sold.

As a 30t year empoylee, it’s sad. But AB set itself up. First, P. Stokes did not do a darn thing on his watch. Our stock did not perform like it should have. This is one of the reasons. Brewing only. Break it down this way, Brew House, Fermenting, Chip Cellars, Finshing. Four Departments. 3 union employees to 1 company emplyoee. They have a Brew Master and a Sr. Asst. Brew Master. Then for each Dept., Asst. Brew Master, Area Manager, group manager, then maint.managers. They have over 50 company people now, verses 20 back in the day. They have kids watching adults. It’s sad, really sad
From the old days

Just a minor observation. Inbev is not an European company. This is a Brazilian company that happens to be incorporated in Belgium. The majority of the executive team and the company main shareholders are Brazilian.
US multinationals acquire hundreds of overseas companies every month and it is not such a big deal … there is absolutely no need for this level of panic and emotional reaction. This is a global economy and merges and acquisitions are just part of the game. Inbev already declared it will make St. Louis the HQ of the North America operations, meaning other brands and products will be incorporated into the commercial portfolio. If anything, the total size of the company business in St. louis will grow and more jobs will be created.

We’re supposed to go to pieces because one huge multi-national corporation is buying another yet our timber, aluminum, copper, coal, oil, and even our National Parks have been on the auction block ever since Raygun and ramped up under Clinton and Bush but NOT a peep about that. We’re supposed to jump on the “Oh those Asians they just so much more intelligent and hardworking than Americans. It’s a really wonderful thing that they’re buying up everything in site.” America’s on the auction block and most of it to a COMMUNIST country with HORRENDOUS human rights abuses. Our government is run by dual Israeli/American citizens and yet still not a peep out of the sheeple. Americans are getting the country they deserve to have which is a Facist Police State. Ha Ha! You’re getting the rug yanked out from under you and you expect people to go to pieces because they’re taking away your beer! Idiots!

frank: “the unions killed it” … the unions did nothing but supply good people with fair wages and benefits. the anti-union attitude that is spreading these days seems truly bizarre to me.

to everyone saying it’s the apocalypse: i can see that point of view on some things — (the Zoo not being free, closing Grants Farm, no brewery tours) — but those things don’t define our city. WE do.

Support a true St. Louis brewer. Drink Schlafly.

So St. Louis no longer has the bragging rights to Budweiser ownership. Poor poor St. Louis! Get over it! For the look of these posts, it looks like the majority of the folks who are crying “boycott” should be saying “rehab”! I mean, how much beer do you drink that you need to announce it on a blog? You better reserve your seat at the next AA meeting. It’s going to be crowded.

As far as jobs, no announcement has been made. If the employees are worried, they should have time to find another job. Times change, economies change but St. Louis refuses to embrace change so this is what happens. St. Louis is so obsessive with its concervative ideals and tradition that the rest of the US and world are passing it by. By the way, Stella Artois is one outstanding beer!

Everyone in my family drinks AB products because they represent St. Louis and a proud history. My grandfather worked there for his entire career so AB has always been tied to our family tradition.
I wish them the best but it’s a hard blow to St. Louis and those of us who grew up alongside of Budman and the Clydesdales.

I was so saddend to hear this. St.Louis is home, its where I grew up, Its where I bagan raising my kids. I’ve been gone for almost a year but thats home. Theres so many memories that were made from AB. Will my 2 year old daughter get that overwhelming feeling when the Clydesdales enter the field on opening day, that myself and so many people get every year. Will that first bud of the baseball season still leave the same taste in my mouth, I dont think so, Shame on you!! Greed is a terrible thing!

The list of the great St. Louis business to leave, or be brought is is becomming ever longer and saddens me. TWA, AG Edwards, Ralston-Purina, May Department Store, etc. You all know the list goes on and on. And now we must write in Anheuser-Bush. These companies have been knitted into the fabric that made St.Louis, but strand by strand they are being snagged and pulled right out by the hands of board members and investors for theyre on perosonal gain. And the city of St. Louis is left tattered and torn.

Where is the national pride?

What next. . . will the Cardinals franchise be sold?

ST.LOUIS HAS SOLD IT`S SOUL.

PS. Good riddens to you Carlos Brito. “you reap what you sow”

This will not be good St. Louis economy. The charitable donations to the area will dwindle to nothing.

I have no need to boycott AB/InBev, as Budweiser probably accounts for less than 5% of my beer budget. Those that are dumping their Bud’s down the drain right now, I doubt your convictions, but good luck to you. If you really want to keep your money in St. Louis, AND have a good beer (for once), try an O’Fallon Gold, O’Fallon Wheat, Schlafly Pilsner, Schlafly Hefeweizen OR… and here’s a thought, actually try something different for once in your plain old life and drink some of the other 15 beers O’Fallon and Schlafly offer. Can you say Schlafly Export IPA or O’Fallon 5-day IPA? AB never has or never will put out a beer of that caliber.

Who wants to bet that in 15 years, you’ll be able to buy some really cool lofts that have been developed out of the Brewery buildings down on Pestolosi?

I do hereby give notice, that I will no longer purchase A-B/InBev products! Further more I will purchase only from local and other mid-western brewers and micro brewers. No corporation, board of directors, or stock holders will influence or determine what I choose to drink!!!

To the A-B Family …nice job, you sold out, what took more than a century for the company/community to build…

Gone to a new brew…

what a bunch of crybabies. it’s over, done with, end of story. half of you don’t know squat about how business operates, you are going to boycott ab products, yet drink another foreign brand? how in the hell does that make sense. this will have zero sum effect on 99% of the people in stl. bet the sun will come up tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and the next till you depart this earth. maybe if you would worry about something other than some brewery that sells a product that fries your brains, the city would be better off. I’m signing off for good because if i read anymore of this whiny stuff, i’m gonna puke.

what am i suppose to do with this tatoo on my arm now.

PEOPLE, calm down a little bit. I don’t like it either but the cuts were coming if AB retained ownership or not.
As long as that little greedy, egotistical, power hungry, weasel looking Brito keeps his promise and keeps the St Louis as the North American HQ and keeps the brewery open here we need to continue buying the AB product line, if not you will give Brito the perfect excuse to close the whole thing.
I admit ordering, buying or holding a bottle of Bud will not feel the same.

When Rolling Rock was bought out and moved from the PIttsburgh area I stopped drinking it. It use to be my beer of choice until they moved.

American companies have been doing this for years. Now that the dollar is weak, turnabout is fair play. This is a global economy after all so suck it up!

PS Maybe InBev can improve the taste of Bud.

It’s official. Armageddon is here.

I am switching completely to smaller American Breweries. They are the innovators now anyway. There is a great one right in St. Louis too. This isn’t the end of American-owned American Beer. We can make the smaller breweries the great ones. The slate has been washed clean. You all can still buy and drink American!!!!!!
P.S. I was an AB Shareholder. When this is entirely finalized that money will not go into InBev.

We lost Falstaff, We lost Stag, now we will lose Bud. I heard they may be making Lemp beer again at the old Lemp brewery.

It is a sad day for many in St. Louis and the nation as a whole. It is hard to believe that one of the world’s leading countries is being taken over by foreign industry and the politians in charge of running this country are allowing/making it happen. If you want someone to blame, lets talk about the politians who continue make decisions that ultimately reduce the value of the american dollar. When are they going to figure out that American’s money needs to stay in AMERICA?

For all of the people out there that are saying “I’ve drank my last Bud, I’m switching to Miller”, you better do some research into SAB Miller. They are not American owned either. Actually, none of the large breweries are American owned. You better starting researching Micro-Brews. Once you make your switch, you will be causing more harm than Carlos Brito and Inbev. Lack of product consumption will only assist Inbev in making more cuts than will already happen.

Think about what you are doing. Don’t be an additional aid to the downfall of the American culture. Remove your heart from the situation and contiue to support AB employees.

Another piece of america sold. I guess the only thing corporate types know how to do well these days in liquidate assets. What happened to innovation, making products, understanding customers and community involvement.

IB doesn’t care about St Louis or America. They care about Belgium and bringing more $$ out of America.

Does anyone actually think this is a good day other than the few people who will benefit financially from the sale?

Sorry, but this is what happens when companies/shareholders are focused on profit maximization in the global economy and no one in government is willing to stop them. Why is China beating us economically? Not just because they make a lot of things for less than it would cost to make ‘em here, BUT also because they don’t practice “what the market will bear” style capitalism. They actually protect some parts of their economy from being owned or taken over by outsiders. A lot of the plastic crap made in China could be made cheaper in Vietnam, but the Chinese GOVERNMENT won’t let the Chinese companies move their production over there without a penalty. Governments should be concerned with protecting the interests of their citizens, not just helping multinational conglomerates to make more money (profit maximization), regardless of the cost at home.

It’ll be fine people. Let’s not get in an uproar. This is business, pure and simple.

My advise, learn Chinese. A recent trip there taught me that.

“We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in ‘decline’ despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy.

We may have a recession; we haven’t had one yet. You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession.”
Phil Gramm, Former US Senator (R) and economic adviser to John McCain.

Are you tired of jobless loosers whining out the US Economy? Do you think the middle class is overpaid and the Super Rich are over taxed? Make sure to vote for more of the McSame!

well. Auggie/Gussie are now spinning in their graves. Kids destroyed the company… another American company bits the dust.

Don’t worry St. Louis, Obama will fix everything.

Is it still going to be Busch Stadium, or does “InBev Stadium” have a nicer ring? Soccer anyone??

howman, these people can’t do rehab till they first get over denial.

this is such big news that it didn’t even make the front page of the wall street journal. front page of section b was as far as it got. clue, nobody else cares!

I will no longer purchase AB products!

This is a product of the Bush economy. Just a highly visible symptom of a huge problem. The dollar is so weak there is a fire sale on all things American - from banks (Citi etc) , to landmark buildings, to huge amounts of real estate, to corporate America. Under the radar, massive numbers of companies are quietly being bought up by foreign interests, but not just foreign companies, actual government controlled investment funds (especially the ones we’re giving all our money to for oil). The political and economic outcome of this is uncharted and will not be so great. The control of US wealth and our very future will be determined by others. Wealth will be transfered out at unheard of rates. Remember the British empire…

It is a real shame. AB has been a part of my family for years and I have always supported it. I am saddened by the merge and I do hope that this doesn’t severely hurt AB and especially St. Louis. I will continue to support AB.

It’s too bad. They used to say St. Louis was “First in booze, first in shoes and last in the American League”. With the loss of so many corporate headquarters over the last 20 years, I think it’s safer to say St. Louis is “First to be screwed”.

When A-B sold the baseball Cardinals, I knew that the company’s commitment to St. Louis was gone. If you feel tremors today, it’s Gussie Busch rolling, no spinning, in his grave.

Oh, and next time you buy $4 gas, remember that BP stands for BRITISH Petroleum.

And the next time you think you’re saving a buck at WallyWorld, remember that WalMart is the single biggest retailer responsible for our immense trade deficit with China.

Let’s support the independent small business owners of St. Louis as much as we can before they all disappear.

This is bad for St. Louis. So what if InBev will now market Bud worldwide, it will be brewed overseas to cut down on the high transportation costs. Why do you think AB has 12 breweries? The profits will go to Belgium and not St. Louis.
Boycotting is not the answer because you will just hurt the employees that survive the axe and give InBev more reason to pull everything out of STL.
To the Chicago guy with the clever tagline who said MillerCoors was locating their HQ in Chicago and STL was going the way of Detroit, I can’t find that story anywhere on the company website or in the Dallas and Chicago newspapers. Business friendly Dallas (no state income taxes unlike top ten Illinois) would be the smart move but they will probably locate in Chicago since Milwaukee is so close. All of the current workers could commute on the train and not have to sell their homes in a tough market.

Anheuser-Busch being owned and operated by Belgians is like Guiness being taken over by the Brits.

It’s ultimately the loss of an ideal and the traditions that surround it.

Check your born on dates - anything brewed prior to July 13th is still technically ours.

As a former St. Louisian I am saddened by the decline of this proud city. I currently live in NV and love it here. I will continue to drink Bud and Bud Light because besides Sam Adams and Micro brews there are no longer American owned breweries in the US.

With a drastically weakened US dollar InBev, using Euros (.63 for every $1) stole the Americon icon for only 32.76 billion EUR.

I blame this mess on ALL politicians, Dems and Repubs.

Anyway I will give Sam Adams a try, but ultimitely This Buds for me.

old dave has them trembling in their boots with his bold statement about no longer buying ab products. by the way, i am not a baseball fan, so i don’t go to the games. can you buy other brands at the stadium? just curious.

Miller is owned by a South African company, so think before you switch your brand. Buy local.

How many of you bellyachers own foreign-made cars?

While I share the sentimental home-town pride expressed by most everyone in this blog, I cannot help but feel disappointment towards the ignorance displayed in this half-thought patriotic stance we are all taking. This buyout is just business as usual for a publicly-owned company. We all act like the board of directors was previously run by all Saint Louisans, or for that matter all AMERICANS. I do not know positively who they were, but I can almost certainly assure you that they do not need our sympathy for their removal. They are not one of us, they are big businessmen, like Warren Buffet. Gatekeepers in American Industry, Economics, and Politics. And if Saint Louis loses another big business, I blame SAINT LOUIS. We need better leadership, and more innovative measures for keeping world-class businesses like ABInBev. And I for one (in the short term, if that is the case) find pride in recognizing that Saint Louis is now home to the world’s largest brewer.

St. Louis is not done. The world is not ending. Get a grip, folks.

I’m amazed how many blame George Bush for this. What the heck does he have to do with the A-B shareholders accepting a bid?

STL–We can’t have it both ways with the dollar–we can’t complain about the costs in China and the rest of the developing world while expecting to keep our currency as high as possible. Given our current trade imbalance, we can’t afford to keep the currency as strong as possible. Economists know this. All that does is ship our wealth overseas. When a country builds up a giant trade imbalance, something has to give. In China’s case, it is inflation. In our case, we’ve chosen to lower the currency instead of opting for deflation. As we learned in the Great Depression, deflation is a bad idea. Weakening the currency is a better alternative It is lowering the net amount we are shipping overseas in spite of dearer oil. Look at the last few statistics on trade–we’re doing better. It’s because the weaker dollar gives our products a competitive advantage on the global market.

Every choice in economics has a tradeoff, though; one downside is that our companies look a little cheaper because of it.

Our banks are for sale because they are poorly managed and not because of any government policy. It doesn’t matter how strong the dollar is–many banks couldn’t figure out how to issue a mortgage profitably.

I think you people have a lot more to worry about than this. Soon you and your kids will be marched off in to another war for Israel while Israeli’s stay home and nap. Your country was sold off to the Communist Chinese (political correctness suggests that they’re no longer called communists). Better get used to it, it’s going to get a LOT WORSE before this thing is over. You were sold down the river by the past four Administrations, Congress, Senate, State Legislatures and the Multi-National Corporations. To them you’re just the unwashed masses and they couldn’t care less about you. Look at the roads, bridges, water systems, levees, dams…….. all failing but God Forbid we cut off Israel from its welfare payments. Forget about it, it’s over!

The decline of the A-B legacy is going to be a self-fulling prophecy if St. Louisians don’t embrace this change. There is huge global opportunities that can make St. Louis an even bigger player in the industry…but Brito will not be patient with such negative attitudes being displayed in STL.

Who is to blame?? First blame your current Republican administration that has devalued the American Dollar making these kinds of deals attractive to the Europeans. Then blame current A-B management that has not maintained value for its shareholders.

The company may be changing, but not the brands — this is a new era that allows STL to participate in the new global economy — get with it St. Louis!!!!

I love my Bud Light, but from now on, I will be drinking Boulevard Beer. It is now the largest Missouri based American owned brewery, based out of Kansas City, MO.

It will be OK for a year, then the cuts will begin. This is a common occurence for all acquisitions. Personally, I have stopped buying ALL A-B products since I heard the news and knew the inevitiable. I’d love to see a nationwide boycott happen…but that’s not likely to happen. What a drag……

Mike

The sale was just business. We all buy stock in one company or another to do what? Make a profit. That said, I am also saddened to see A-B sold, but lets not forget that the Busch family sold their rights a long time ago and were no longer the owners. The shareholders were. Also, what made this sale possible was our Government’s management of the ecomony. Our dollar is almost worthless and America is for sale. Want a real scare? Take a look what countries are holding loans to the USA. If they call our loans, we, as a Country are in big trouble. Wake up. We need to take our Government back and those currently in and running for office don’t have a clue.

They have sold the Soul of St.Louis,the Share holders who joy themselves dont realise you cant determine price for your soul, shame on you people, The Board, Shareholders and the D—l I-Bv, Time will tell how much has been lost few individuals may become rich but not good for St.louis, its citizens, workers etc list can go on for the more negatives than positives.

This is definitely not a good deal for St. Louis. This is terrible, one of the worst things that can happen for St. Louis and the U.S. in regards to business. This is a perfect example of the problem in the U.S. Now A-B is owned by a company overseas (InBev) just like many of the companies that resided here. Eventually we will end up sending every one of our companies over seas and nothing will be owned in our country anymore. I am afraid this is a sad reality that is imminent.

Again… I reiterate that while it is a sad day, all the talk about boycotting the brand, or buying american, or it’s George Bush’s fault is absolutely ludicrous. Just like the supposed “Best Fans in Baseball” Kool-Aid that this town drinks on a daily basis, they also apparently have been drinking too much of the AB products as well, just like the “Best Fans in Baseball”

Plain and Simple– you were sold a bill of goods. Credit the marketing department of AB, as they have been masterful at making consumers buy or talk about their brands for years. Someone emailed me some Bud commercials of the past… all great commercials… but two stuck out at me, and made me very angry at August Busch III and IV for what they’ve done. The Clydesdale commercial where they honor New York after 9/11, and the more recent one where the troops walking through the airport get applauded… On the surface, these are tremendously moving commercials. But then you think how the Busch’s have talked about being a proud American Company, about their traditions, about staying an independent brewer… but then don’t do anything to protect themselves from a foreign company buying them out.

And of course, like the lemmings that we are, we believe them, thinking they wouldn’t do that to Gussie’s legacy, etc… Garbage. They did what they were supposed to do. They executed a brilliant marketing campaign… they got people to sign on by donating so amazingly to local charities…they were moving towards more responsibilty for the environment…and we bought into it.

The bottom line is they did what a company is supposed to do…make money.
And while everyone is whining about boycotts, and blaming politicians…I myself will continue to buy Budweiser, not because of some principle, but because it’s a good beer. Hopefully they will continue to make it a good beer, and not sacrifice the quality.

As long as St. Louis is the World Headquarters, I will continue to drink my beloved Bud Light. If they move it from St. Louis, then I will switch to Schafly. I just seriously hope that the leaders of this city get on board with this new company. The damage is done, but we need to work with Brito to make him understand how important this company is to St. Louis.

Also for the Non-St. Louisians…this is a big deal to our city. As St.Louisians we are very proud to be from this city, we are proud of our beer and everything else. Many people whether rational or not believe that A-B was a St. Louis family company. It feels like we were betrayed by a Company that we have been very very good too. So while you think it is whinning, to us we are mourning a Company with a rich past that improved our community. There is more to this than just a beer company being bought out.

We can only prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

oh my gosh! a st. louisan drinking a kansas city beer! almost as bad as drinking a st. louis made beer like budweiser. oh, i forgot, they are going to close the brewery, make everything in belgium and ship it back here. the wind must whistle through some of you guys ears because there is nothing up there to stop it.

Well, this probably won’t be a good deal for the St. Louis region. But everyone critizing this deal should realize that a hostile takeover is also an element of the free market America endorses. Sometimes you win (and America has won a lot), sometimes you lose…

I will not drink another Bud. Anheuser-Busch is no longer an American company, I buy American - it is as simple as that! I encourage my fellow Budmen to follow me. Once InBev’s aquisition is worth 75% of what they paid, we will buy it back - that’s the American way!

Thought you got a good deal InBev - just wait!

The one benefit of this takeover - a more diverse beer selection at Busch Stadium.

Seriously, a boycott is ridiculous and moronic. With new ownership the company finally has a chance to grow and flourish like it used to. This was a good deal for the brand, the company and the shareholders. And sorry for those who think shareholders are nothing but greedy. Those who buy stock in their retirement portfolios are shareholders as well. For the past 7 years, the company has been stagnant. It has paid a crap dividend and prior to the rumors of this deal, the stock was valued the same as it was in 2001. That is ridiculous.

The parties who are hurt most in this deal are those who AB gave charitable contributions to. Set aside some time to pray for them rather then wasting time fantasizing about boycotts and campaigns.

i guess i can go out and by another Cadillac ! and 6 Millers.

For those who think that the negative effect will be felt only by AB workers, I have some bad news. AB supports (pretty generously) local (St. Louis) charities, cultural institutions, sports teams, public improvements, etc. This support will dry up — not immediately, but soon, and it will not get replaced by the European global conglomerate that acquires AB and cares not one bit about your museums, symphonies, schools, roads, tax base, sports teams, etc. Whatever BS is currently being promulgated, these multi-national companies care only about short-term results for their shareholders. You are losing a very involved, generous corporate citizen. The whole community will feel the loss.

stlouissportsfan: It’s not the world headquarters-just the north american headquarters. glad you are proud of our unacreddited st. louis public schools. who in there right mind would move here and send their kids to the public school. thank god the catholic schools let other religions attend.

hey pignpoke…if you hate our city that much…do us all a favor and LEAVE.

I’m sorry but I have to comment on what Penguinwoman (real name?) said at 8:11 am July 14th, 2008:

“The only place this is a good thing is in the bank accounts of the larger shareholders. They see dollar signs - a new yacht, another mansion - not the devastating effect this will have on the company itself.”

As a shareholder who has done quite well, I resent this insinuation. Just because some of us have done well, please don’t jump to conclusions about how we use our ownership profits.

First, I have no intention of buying a new yacht. Does anyone have any idea what it takes to maintain one’s current yacht? For me, it takes about $200k / year (which I’m NOT going to take out of my trust fund). Also, how do you think I can pay the 14 staff members on my yacht? I expect some return on my investment, so I consider this sale to be a blessing.

I am still hoping that the fine people of St. Louis will come on board and see the benefits of a well-run, multinational company. It will be better for all of us in the long run. This afternoon, to celebrate, I’m going to pour a Budweiser at one of my shipboard bars. Cheers!

I’m leaaaaving on a jet plane. whoops, i mean regional jet,no scratch that, a turboprop.

Due to Bush’s failed policies that have led to a 40%+ drop in the value of the dollar vs. the euro, InBev is purchasing a 2008 AB at 2002 prices ($50/share+40%=$70 offer). Back out the rise in value of the euro and InBev is getting a larger, smarter & better AB for the same price it worth in 2002.

Thanks Bush! We will forever be in your DEBT!

Brito has a chance to makes things right especially with his “word”. He knows what all STL people have been through with the “word” of past STL companies. That is why so many are skeptical. It is not just STL with worries. Ft. Collins, Cartersville, Jacksonville, etc. many states and cities. BUT St. Louis is the one that companies have walked out on holding the bag on a regular basis. Wouldn’t he just love it if he could also say how he helped save the city/county and also helped bring in other companies to the region. Just a thought. He does have to tread lightly with this.

Really…..boycotting? Why? If you say foreign ownership…and you will have nothing to do with foreign purchasing. Look at your computer, shoes, socks, materials, (food, yeah look there too) pens,appliances etc. Really, you will only be hurting yourself and the regions that deal with the breweries. Even farmers are nervous about this, store owners, delivery companies etc. Its not just about the beer, the beer company toughes many people and many things. it will be bad enough when more employees are let go. Hard working, dedicated employees. And I am not talking about the employees that are highly paid with bonus/stock/etc. I am talking about the folks who are damn happy they have a job that tries to provide a good work/life balance. AB truely tries to give back even when times are tough.

Brito will be extacting with his knive, but hopefully fat and not FLESH will be cut. He has to take a step back and see how AB ran the business and it IS SUCCESSFUL. He may find that HE may have to bend also, to make things work, the last thing he needs is a major culture clash.

This is the best thing that has ever happened to St. Louis. I don’t see how 1,000 people losing their jobs could be qualified as anything but a good deal.

See how asinine that sounds? What kind of readers is the Post-Dispatch catering too? Is it good or bad? Come on. I feel stupider for logging onto your site today. Will have to rectify that from now on.

Feels like US companies, especially those in the STL area, are just sitting ducks right now.

Nice job August III & IV and the other clowns on the A-B board. It’s all about the shareholders & profit. Not about tradition and historic St. Louis? You sold your souls for greed. Shame on you! Now Napoleon Brito and his band of banditos are laughing at America as will the rest of the world. You really should have fought this hostile takeover off with your hearts and not your wallets!

Schlafly, anyone?

Paul,

There is a Paul poster who seems to not understand how government policies influence business. He does not understand how the President has influence over business policies.

He does not seem to understand how big corporations influence politicians, including the President. He does not even seem to realize how even, (NAFTA) HB1 visa’s became policy because of two particular Presidents, the first Republican and the next Democrat because he felt that he had to play ball with the Republicans who controlled Congress.

He does not seem to understand how “Corporate Lobbyist” influence, banking, healthcare, big business and the very soul of America.

He does not understand how the Republicans begin the downward turn of this country beginning with their god, President Reagan as the poster Bob pointed out by placing America on the auction block, beginning with timber, aluminum, copper, coal, oil, even our National parks etc, which was accomplished through government policy, free trade and other policies at the urging of CORPORATE AMERICA through their lobbyist that were wrapped up under the first Pres. Bush and Pres. Clinton. Pres. Clinton played ball due to the Republican controlled Congress, sadly he felt he had to in order to get any of the things he needed to get done, done.

Lastly, he does not understand how our weak doolar makes it very attractive and smart for foreigners to hostily take over American Corporations.

Saudi Arabia and Communist China owns more of us than Americans. Saudi has invested over 2 trillion dollars in the U.S. economy, one trillion in our stock market and another trillion in our banks, if they pull out their money this country would crash and be devastated like no other time in our history, we will be finished.

I hear that InBev is actually owned by Brazilians? That’s interesting, read this:

http://www.brazzil.com/p117jun03.htm

As I stated earlier I do not understand I why any blue-collar worker or middle-class person would vote Republican. I wonder if Missourians and all of America will wake-up and open their eyes up to the reason Missouri as every other state in the U.S. is and will be facing financial perils. I would imagine MOST for only two three reasons, GREED, RACISM, AND IMAGINED WHITE PRIDE. The others have been falsely convinced of things that are invalid on their face, fear of increased taxes, capitalization, socialism etc..

They have allowed these ones with greedy motives to turn their eyes onto all the wrong things for a very long time at IMAGINED problems, (quota’s, free-hand-outs, equal rights amendment, locking Blacks out of construction and union jobs, etc..), these very ones who had you focus your eyes on these imagined issues were the ones raping you and America. Many of you voted Republican because that party represented your desires to lock Blacks out, not realizing that they could care less about you and were the entire time passing policies that would also lock you out of jobs.

Sadly, this is exactly what happens when hearts are in the wrong places. Your heart and desires were wrong and so were theirs. Now, take a good look where that has lead US ALL. The consequences of so many hearts being set so wrong in their deeds will be a hard pill to swallow. I wonder if those who belong to the “Conservative Citizen” and those others who hold such beliefs are wising up now. I certainly hope that they are. If it weren’t so sad, it would be funny.

And the thought is certainly crossing the mind of many minorities in America, wondering if the doors to jobs will be as tightly closed to them under foreign control?

Hey, Charter Communications is a Fortune 500 company with its headquarters here in St. Louis! No one mentioned them? Charter employs many St. Louisains and makes important contributions to St. Louis charities and the community, not one word. All I ever read in this paper are people complaining about Charter. In fact I remember reading a story that was singing the praises of people who left Charter to switch to AT&T, a company that abandoned St. Louis for San Antonio Texas.

If we are going to apply the “local rule” to business…make sure it is applied fairly.

I have just finished my last Bud product. Thanks Carlos! Thats ok. I’m going to start drinking Granite City Micro Brew. It’s American!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InBev

It was a very good deal. They paid over a 40% premium. The comment about greedy money hungry shareholders is absolutley ludicrous. Why does someone become a shareholder? For one reason only, and that is to make money. The company has gone nowhere in the past ten years. Why does everyone think that they could easily return 40% to shareholders in a few short years.

I will say that this is a blow to the St. Louis economy. Whatever promises InBev makes about keeping jobs and manufacturing in St. Louis will be short lived. The worst part is that the local charities that benefitted from AB will suffer greatly.

The city has done absolutely nothing to spur economic growth. Francis Slay has done nothing. Businesses are leaving downtown. What happened to this city revitalization. I hope those who bought there $300k one bedroom lofts downtown are happy now. Posers.

On a positive note, most of the employees that I know who work there are **sholes, so I’m completely OK with them getting f**ked in the s**thole.

I am extremely dissapointed in this development. I live in Jacksonville where there is a Budweiser Brewery and I would be worried if I worked there. This is just another example of greedy people selling out for their immediate gain and not looking at the future of the brand name. I personally will boycott all AB and !nBev products. This may look like I’m abandoning a local employer, which may true, but I have enjoyed AB products for 32 years in my heart I can no longer purchase products by a sell-out. A well respected American institution in my opinion is now dead. Goodbye King of beers.

People on these posts need to get a grip. The world is not ending because A-B is being bought. The city is not going to cease to function. The country is not “heading down the tubes”. The people that will be laid off will find other jobs. When things like this happen it is usually a short-term pain. As far as the country goes it is called an economic downturn. They have and will always happen from time to time. Even with these issues of the day we still have the largest economy, strongest military, and the best people in the world. We would have the worst form of government if it wasn’t for all the others.

Several things have happened recently work with the A-B sale to create a unique opportunity for advancing ‘green-collar’ jobs in Saint Louis:

* Cerberus Capital Management announced the permanent closure of the Chrysler plant in Saint Louis
* T. Boone Pickens announced his plan to blueprint to reduce foreign oil dependence by harnessing domestic energy alternatives

Ownership of Anheuser Busch stock is concentrated in Saint Louis in the extended Busch family and the executives and workers at the Saint Louis headquarters. The buyout will provide massive capital looking for new investment - with many stockholders living in and committed to the future of the Saint Louis area. The Chrysler plant is rail served and located in a prime location for delivering equipment to the central plains where the Pickens Plan proposes to build wind farms on a massive scale. Saint Louis is also a major barge freight hub. The Chrysler plant was recently updated and the shutdown provides both skilled labor and modern equipment.

In addition, Saint Louis is home to the Integrated Defense Systems of Boeing with a large labor pool of highly-skilled engineers and scientists. We are home to Washington University, a leading national research institution. Washington University and the University of Missouri at Saint Louis have demonstrated effective partnerships with industry. We are home to Zoltec corporation with carbon fiber technology. And Saint Louis has a very low cost of living and a strong work ethic. Our investments in transportation infrastructure include extension of MetroRail, our light-rail system and the complete rebuilding of Interstate 64, our major east-west highway.

We have the people. We have the money. We have the factories and infrastructure. We have the skills. We have the will to succeed. What we need is the leadership to put it all together.

In January of 2000, the Dow sat at about 11,800 euros, and the euro traded roughly even with the dollar. Now the Dow stand at about 7000 euros, and the euro trades at about 1.6 USD. Over this 8 year period, US stocks have fallen 40%. Thank the Bush administration for the sale of AB, not the AB stockholders. Thanks to GW, the US is on a fire sale, and all our US assest should be tagged “40% off”.

d.walker, your sermon was pretty incoherent, but i did detect something about racism. Where is that coming from? ask some of the oldtimers around here about all the chances blacks and other minorities had in landing a job at ab years ago. slim and none.

This ranks right up there with getting Brangelina updates directly to your Blackberry. Maybe Iranians are behind this? If that’s the case then Juan “Amnesty” McCain will fix everything for us because he loves America, Santy Claws, and Baby Jeebus and wants America to thrive as the World’s Newest 3rd World Nation! Viva La McCain!

St Louis is my home & AB is a staple. Whenever a hostile takeover is in play anyway you put it, it was hostile is not good for the company or the community. If our economy had been better, they could not have come over here and done this! Another one of Bush’s liabilties!!

Stlsportsfan,

Great points. I’m on board with you and your beer drinking plan. I have too many good friends to abandon A-B products as long as they are STL made. If InBev turns back on its word and betrays St. Louis, as well as over a hundred years of tradition and pride by taking North American HQ out of the city, or shutting down our brewery here, then bye bye Bud. As long as I can enjoy one knowing it’s still hometown brewed, then I’ll stick to it. If they drop us, then it’s operation boycott.

Speaking of Schlafly, I already enjoy Schlafly beer, as I think it is another, albeit much smaller and newer, asset to this city. Additionally, Schlafly hosts many events around the city, and also sponsors and hosts charitable events. Again, they are on a much smaller scale, but Tom and Co have their hearts in the right place and a definite love for St. Louis. As for Tom Schlafly himself, he is a friend of my family and a good man. He never saw himself as a true competitor of AB ala Miller, but it was often laughable what a threat AB saw him as…and how they often tried to stomp him or prevent him from brewing a certain amount of beer each year, etc. During his fledgling beer company’s journey, he was sometimes quashed by the beer giant when he tried to participate in events like Strassenfest - to sell Schlafly products there alongside AB. Just a few years ago he finally got what I believe is a single tap in Busch stadium selling his pale ale. For more, check out his book, “A New Religion in Mecca: Memoir of a Renegade Brewery in St. Louis.”

I’d be interested to see his reaction to AB’s sale, but I don’t think, as an earlier participant said, “laughing all the way to the bank” about this - he’s a native son, and as concerned for the workers and the tradition of AB as anyone, I am sure, and its special relationship to our town that you mention, and that outsiders probably won’t or can’t understand. I had my last American-Owned Bud Light on the 4th of July, watching the fireworks over the Arch. But it won’t be my last American-Made Bud Light.

I like to wallow in a puddle of my own filth after getting slammed on AB products and then I throw the empty containers everywhere! Seeing emtpy liquor containers is cool and quite sophisticated, especially when they’re on the sides of the roads meaning we consumed them while driving!

Anyone with half a brain should be able to figure out that A-B isn’t going to shut down production and move it to Europe when it’s such a dominant brand here. People in Europe don’t drink Bud.

But if you’re looking to boycott A-B, feel free! Schlafly beers are still local and are better than any A-B product.

Stay local… Drink beer from other locally owned brew pubs.

Someone explain to me why the global economy is great for America? If it is as great as everyone seems to think it is why am I paying, $4/gallon for gas, almost $4/gallon of milk, $3/dozen of eggs. I replaced a water line over the weekend, have you had to buy copper pipe lately, my goodness I thought I misread the sign it was gold pipe for price of a 10 foot section.

If this is globalization I don’t like it!!!!!

Just remember folks greed has destoyed more than one civilization. The AB take over is obviously not the only company to be bought. The driving force behind most of these is greed. Inbev, for example, has made and is making plenty of money and their owners will never have to worry where their next meal is coming from.
The drive behind this acquistion is out and out GREED AND EGO. AB was not in financial trouble and needed rescueing. The sad fact is that Mr. Brito will not lose one wink of sleep over the fact that he may ruin the lives of other human beings and not just at AB.

I think it would be very interesting to know how many of you that are complaining own a foreign car?? I think the deal sucks, but I would bet a case of Bud that at least one-third of the people posting own a Nissan, Toyota, Honda etc… You reap what you sow!!!

start with a watered down gene pool, add a cup of incompetence, a cup of arrogance and a gallon of greed….result, a company that didnt need to end up in the hands of InBev….Gussie is rolling in his grave

Hey, here is an idea……if you all hate St.Louis…MOVE.We did!

rgoodiel,
I am sure you are correct.
I bought a GM several years ago thinking I was buying an American made product, got home opened the owners manual and the thing was made in Canada. I wanted to buy American made, did my homework to make sure the model I picked out had a good track record so forth and so forth but the only thing I didn’t check was where it was made. I just assumed and you know what happens when you assume something,

I hope everyone talking of boycotting AB products really follow through. I hope the whole country does. That would be fantastic. Once the demands shrinks InBev may be forced to use up the cost savings, which they are bound to see, by lowering their prices. Then I will be able to by my favorite beer at a lower cost. Of course they wont be able to do that forever and will have to lay off the workers that did happen to retain their jobs so that they can reduce supply in order to raise their costs to see the margins they feel they need. I wonder how the A-B guys that work the lines in the 13 or so breweries feel knowing the fellow citizens will refuse to by their product simply because of who owns the joint? But I guess if they are true blue, dyed in the wool democrat voting union members, they will quit their jobs instead of accepting money from those evil foreigners, right?

Anheuser-Busch St.louis Missouri… I cant believe its over.. sad sad day for the USA, and especially all of us from the show me state…

I fear my home town will suffer more than they know. While boycotting the product due to the sale may decrease demand, thus possibly affecting the local brewery, I doubt the effects will be seen from the small group who will do so.

America is for sale , not just AB. The sad, harsh reality is most “Americans” don’t even understand, nor care what is happening to their country. This isn’t just a sign of bad times to come to STL, but the overall trend coming to the USA.

looks like august IV won’t have an executive position but will get a seat on the board. Bet he will be the guy sitting in the corner who makes the donut and coffee run, just like barney fife in the old andy griffith show.

pign’poke,

Everything was fact and should have been understandable to even a 9th grader. Is this all that you are capable to add to the conversation? How about stating at least what you disagree with and why? The main problem here is that we have too many adults here who think that they are so smart but don’t have the common sense or IQ. of a child, and certainly not hearts that are pure, but tainted and unclean.

Neither have you comprehended what I stated, but then you claim that was because it was incoherant, right?

I say it is a problem with your intellect. That’s the problem, too many stupid people in charge and running things and this country, sad to say and you sound like one of them.

D. Walker–did the President do that, or did our Congress pass those bills and he signed them? It’s not like one guy decides how our whole economy will move.

Bill Clinton didn’t “play ball” because the Republicans made him do it. He’s a believer in the free market economy.

Besides, my point is that the government is not the focal point of our economy–private enterprise is. We should be more focused on what companies are doing than what our government is doing.

Do I need to give the reasons why we weakened our dollar again? With our giant trade deficit something had to give. We have to lower the deficit eventually through deflation or a lower currency. Deflation leads to things like the Great Depression–it’s not a choice made by any central bank around the world. Thus, we’ve lowered our currency. It helps us pay off the debt by making our goods look cheaper than those produced in foreign nations. It has reduced our trade deficit over the past few months–it is working.

The alternative is that we can strengthen our currency and pay more money to China and the Middle East. Besides, this just increases our trade deficit–increasing the pain we’ll take later when we have to pay it off through, you guessed it, deflation or a weaker currency! You can’t have it both ways–you cannot support a strong dollar and complain about the wealth we are shipping overseas.

The downside is that it makes our companies cheaper for overseas acquirers.

So, would you prefer we just not sell our natural resources and let them sit in the ground? Where do you propose we get our timber, copper, etc. from then?

kdunlap–what do you think you would be paying for gas or milk if there weren’t a global economy? Considering we import 70% of the oil we use, you wouldn’t even be able to find any gas for your car. It is a myth to believe we can exist on our own in this world.

Well my days of going to a store or bar to buy beer are OVER. Utterly disgusted over this entire mess. Looks like I’m making my own beer, since there isn’t any TRUE American Beer anymore. How long before we GET to change the name of the Stadium?

d. walker, puhleeeze get the violin out. pure hearts, unclean hearts, i feel like i have been to a holy roller revival.
signed
stupid pign’poke

If they change the stadium name, it would probably just become “Budweiser Stadium.”

I’ve been boycotting AB for years…since they tried to break the driver’s union. Truthfully I don’t care for their products anyway and there are much much better beers out there. People forget that St. Louis is home to another small great brewery who lives in Maplewood.

At any rate, people who are complaining about the greedy shareholders forget thats just how capitalism works! The board is legally obligated to make money for the shareholders and NOTHING ELSE!! They have no responsibility to anything social, charitable, etc. If they didn’t accept the Inbev offer the takeover would have been hostile and they would have gotten nothing except fired by court order. That is the system you live in. Live with it or overthrow it…there is no in between.

At the end of the day the takeover will be bad for St. Louis and middle class (and lower class) people in general. “Cost Cutting” really just means “Labor Cutting”, especially given the history of inbev. In a capitalist world you don’t get rich or big by being nice.

I have read already on other news sights that this buyout will cost st. louis an extimated 1000 jobs and about 3000 world wide.

who still says this is good for the local economy????

Will this be good for St. Louis? Is that supposed to be a joke? This “newspaper” has the same problem that budweiser has - foreign ownership.

A very bad thing for the city and the United States… there is nothing united about us anymore. Politicians have ruined us.

The shareholders (the owners) of AB will get to vote on the sale of their company. This is not a forced sale, such as when St. Louis uses eminent domain to force people to sell property that they do not want to sell at prices that are too low. Mayor Slay and Governor Blunt support forced sales using eminent domain to enrich developers, but oppose owners voting to sell their company (AB). If Wachovia is sold to J P Morgan Chase or Wells Fargo, I would not be surprised if A G Edwards is moved out of St. Louis.

Libertarian, it would be hard for JP Morgan or Wells Fargo to buy Wachovia given the rule that no bank can control over 10% of the deposits in the US. I suspect they may be too big as a combined entity. That’s part of why Wachovia wanted to merge with an i-bank–they would have had no issues with this.

Screw InBev - I’m now a Miller Man

Very VERY SAD!!!!!!!

Congratulationsto the Busch kids, I’m sure you’re grandfather is disgusted!

Paul
I realize we can’t exist on our own, we wouldn’t last a week. My comment was tongue in cheek.
I still don’t like paying $4/gallon though. However, I am driving a lot less so maybe in the long run it will all come out in the wash. I will have fewer oil changes, my tires will last longer, less wear and tear thus in theory fewer repair bills, fewer miles on the car when I sell it so I should get more money for it (does get good gas mileage not a SUV) and if every one drives less that will mean fewer accidents and therefore my insurance premiums should go down. Maybe higher gas prices is a good thing!!

pign’poke, i usually don’t post. i just like to read. but i have to say you were right. i fell asleep reading the post.

The market for beer changed, the management at AB didn’t and a very costly war has contributed to the weak dollar. Too bad for St. Louis. Call George Bush and ask his opinion.

PAY ATTENTION TO THOSE WHO ARE PINNING THIS MESS…AS WELL AS MANY OTHER INTERNATIONAL TAKEOVERS….ON THE ONE WHO IS DIRECTING OUR COUNTRY’S FINANCIAL MESS…….THE ONE AND ONLY GEO.W.BUSH…….OUR COUNTRY IS THE BUTT OF MANY JOKES IN EUROPE AND WE THE CITIZENS ARE THOUGHT OF AS WAR HAPPY BULLIES. BLAME ALL THE BUSCHS’ AND BE SURE IN PUT THE BIGGEST BUSH AT THE TOP OF THE LIST!!!

Well, here it is, A-B in no longer American/St. Louis owned. As of today, I will no loger purchase A-B products. It is unfortunate that the Ball Park is named for them. A-B’s board must be ashamed of themselves for selling out. Greed, Greed, Greed.

With all the breweries A-B has driven out of business over the years, why does anyone shed a tear when it happens to them?

Did anyone have anything to say about the “little guy” in Pennsylvania when A-B acquired Rolling Rock?

For those that will lose their jobs, that is unfortunate. The beer brewed on Pestalozzi was ranked 40th out of 60 in St.L when it was first acquired. Those employees, as well as the ones in Pennsylvania, and the tinkers, and the blacksmiths, fur trappers and dial phone manufacturers all had to find other employment when industry and trends moved away from them.

It’s the ability to change, to adapt, to innovate, that is at the heart of the American experience.

kdunlap–I agree. High gas prices are a pain, but at least it forces us to use less of something that has so many negatives associated with it.

it’s only called greed when you don’t get in on the spoils. If you get in, it was a damned smart investment on your part. Isn’t that the way it works,eh!

Noreen–What do you believe about the European economy? It’s not any better than ours right now. Germany just admitted they expect to have a recession starting in the second quarter of 2008. Our President isn’t reason the global economy slowed down; it’s the fault of dearer commodities and our housing bubble’s toxic effect on every financial institution it touches.

An American product? That is like finding a needle in a haystack! Have you seen the list of beers brewed/owned by InBev and SAB-Miller (that’s South African Breweries to you folks who didn’t realize Miller/Coors/Molson fall under that ownership). Becks, Lowenbrau, Stella, Brahma, Corona (until they sell their shares that is)…

I guess that leaves Jim Koch at Boston Brewing jumping for joy! Hold the phone, new Sam Adams commercial “American Owned, American Brewed.”

Bad business decisions by board of A-B, that’s the reason things went south (unwilling to realize watery fizzy lager was not a growth market, talking animals do not equate with taste and quality, etc.) . Unfortunately, the workers pay the price.

http://boycottab.blogspot.com/

Boycott AB products St. Louis!! InBev doesn’t care about us.
Just read the details of “BLUE OCEAN” which details how they
will cut 1.5 BILLION dollars in expenses over the next 3 years.
How you ask ? By greater leverage with suppliers, more aggressive production efficiencies and “elimination of corporate overlapping functions” — which will likely lead to some job losses at A-B’s corporate headquarters in St. Louis.

http://boycottab.blogspot.com/

from the Washington Post; Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, is set to get a huge payout from the sale of Anheuser-Busch Cos., brewer of Budweiser and hundreds of other brands, to Belgian beverage giant InBev NV. So, you see, the McCain’s will be just fine. You have absolutely nothing to worry about.

Glen
I agree AB products are not all that special, except for maybe Bud Light Lime I like one or two of those.
One of the reasons that Inbev wanted AB was for their marketing. AB has always known how to market and sell their beer in an industry in which most American beers taste the same.
They didn’t get to almost a 50% share because they had a superior product they got there because they knew how to make the American public buy it. An if large horses, spotted dogs and talking frogs worked that is the direction they went. Can’t agrue with domestic success. AB did fail in expanding their product in the global economy.

Ross–Blue Ocean is an A-B program, not an InBev program. They already planned to reduce the workforce. It’s not like A-B would have continued employing 6,000 people here if InBev hadn’t come along–they had already committed to meaningful cost cuts.

reggieb–why does it matter that Cindy McCain owns A-B stock? She didn’t have anything to do with A-B making this deal.

Ross
“Blue Ocean” is/was AB’s cost cutting. This plan has been around for 4 or 5 years now. The emergance of Inbev caused the brewer to bring it public and implement it faster to try to satisfy stockholders. One billion dollars of costs were going to be cut out of AB anyway.
Boycotting will not stop it and will only hurt those left behind. If sales suffer too much Inbev will shut down the whole thing!!!!

In the long run, if it provides more jobs to St. Louis, then that’s good.

I don’t like that InBev purchased AB, but look at the U.S. dollar, seriously. We are a very vulnerable country.

A very costly war, and a fiscally irresponsible government doesn’t help. I am sure those tax breaks on the wealthy aren’t helping that deficit either.

Eric
You are correct about the tax breaks on capital gains (generally only effects wealthier Americans). On reason, other than the weak dollar, that Inbev came out now is that the capital gains tax is lower and if a democrat gets in he has already promised to raise this tax. Therefore, stockholders would have been less likely to approve with a much heftier tax bill.

Perhaps you people’s loyalty is misplaced. Ever been in one of their offices? Stacked to the rafters with contract workers and H1Bs. AB cares about AB not you!

kdunlap–no, InBev came out now because they felt it was the right time to make a deal. This has zero to do with the capital gains tax rate.

These deals are usually decided by institutional investors. Capital gains taxes aren’t a big deal for them–they just pass them along to their investors. Deals are not going to stop being done if the capital gains rate goes up. Raising the capital gains tax rate affects many other things (generally in a negative way for the economy as a whole), but it won’t suddenly stop deals from getting done.

Now if you said part of the reason the deal is getting done is because InBev will gain tax arbitrage on their interest payments, then you’d have a real point. InBev is going to make most of these debt payments in the US and deduct them from their US corporate tax return because our corporate taxes are higher than those in most European countries. Not only is InBev buying A-B’s earnings, they’re also buying the right to receive a larger tax deduction than they would receive in Europe if they were just making an acquisition there. Our higher corporate tax rate makes it easier for foreign companies to issue debt and buy our enterprises.

Eric–the dollar is weak because of our trade deficit, not our fiscal deficit. Most developed European economies have deficits that are at least as large as ours when compared to their GDP (the metric that really matters for determining a deficit’s effect on the economy as a whole).

I meant fiscal deficits in the last comment.

I saw the McCaskill is blaming Bush’s policies for AB being bought and that it’s time to change Washington. Liberal drivel. There are many reasons that AB was bought, including the weak dollar, but to blame this solely on Bush is idiocy. The Democrats brought billions of dollars to the table with huge spending programs and Bush failed to veto most of them. So yeah, he failed to do what we conservatives wanted him to do…but you Democrats had a hand in it also. I would also bet that many of Claire’s liberal breatheren have close ties to Berkshire Hathaway.

I’ll continue to drink AB products until my wife loses her job there…then I’ll switch to Schlafly or Sam Adams (and I’ve been a loyal AB drinker for over 25 years).

All I can say to my AB friends is…buckle your seat belts. I’ve been through this several times. For those of you who don’t lose your jobs, say goodbye to all your perks. Expense accounts, blackberries, cell phones, laptops, extravagant Christmas parties, they’ll all be gone. Expect to pay much, much more for health insurance. Even things like office supplies will be hard to come by. Soon your trash will only be picked up once a week and your workplace will be seldom cleaned. And forget about leaving for the day to take in a Cardinals game! All of the things that made AB a great place to work will disappear…and more quickly than you realize. (I’ll bet you’ll still get your free beer though). I love St. Louis and I love AB products…no boycott here. But I’m afraid that those who work at AB are about to get a healthy dose of reality. Prepare to be squeezed…harder than you ever have been. Welcome to the world the rest of us live and work in. St. Louis will survive…we’ll just never be what we once were…at least not in my lifetime.

Budweiser is American? It seems the Budweiser name was stolen from a European brewery:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budweiser

Riggeb,

I really do not know what to say…

What is your purpose -and the Washington Post’s- for commenting on how Cindy McCain will fare out of the merger?

I don’t think you are suggesting that the McCain’s or the White House have some sinister role in creating this merger. If so, please say so.

So it is interesting because her family own a distributor on Arizona, as well as company stock? That is relevant and/or important how?

If, in some adult way, you can explain this, than can you comment on how Jesse Jackson’s kids will do?

Rev. Jesse Jackson “encouraged” a Budweiser executive to choose one of Jackson’s sons as majority owner the lucrative Chicago beer distributorship.

While he denied having anything to do with his sons landing the lucrative Anheuser-Busch distributorship in 1998. And the friend, billionaire supermarket tycoon and Clinton financier Ron Burkle, denied favoritism played a role.

In 1982, Rev. Jackson organized a boycott of A-B because of its “lack of a minority distributor”.

Yusef Jackson rejects suggestions that his father’s boycott influenced Anheuser-Busch’s decision to sell River North to the Jacksons in 1998.

Since you like sarcasm, I am sure that as he was 28 at the time, he was the most qualified at the time. (At least on some metric other than content of his character: how’s MLK’s Dream doing?)

Will you and the Post demonize him too, if he makes money out of this deal?

Let’s not panic. I have a plan. The taxpayers should build a new headquarters and brewery facility in St. Louis for InBev. In return InBev must promise to build a new entertainment and retail complex downtown, with condominiums and office space. The entertainment, retail, condo, office complex will be called InBev Village. If the construction of InBev Village is not commenced within 5 years, InBev can still keep the new headquarters and brewery facility, (call it a gift from the taxpayers), but InBev is obligated to seed and water the vacant InBev Village site. So there you go, everyone is worrying about nothing.

I’m not surprised by the comments posted here having lived in STL in the past. IMHO, a good percentage of the STL population is comprised of bigoted, religious hyprocrites, and sometimes not the brightest. Your resistance to change, and anyone who did not go to one of your high schools are the reasons for your city’s demise. You cannot hope to survive in a global economy with that mindset.

clearthinker, why should the taxpayer do that? InBev hasn’t said it wants a new brewery or HQ. Why should we pony up when they don’t seem to want one?

The Busch Family and stockholders are TRAITORS to America, and the American people. No American Company should ever be owned by a foreign entity. I will forever be a Samuel Adams drinker now. At least they are stilled owned by Americans

Paul: Are you serious? If you don’t like my first plan I have another. St. Louis could ask the Federal Government for a bailout just as they have done with Bear Stearns, IndyMac Bank, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. St. Louis is a basketcase just like these four so why not? Got to go now, Mayor Slay is making a big deal out of cutting the ribbon at a new shoe shine parlor that is opening on Washington Ave and I would not want to miss it.

I can’t believe I live in a world where Bud is owned by a European brewer. I am not a Bud drinker..and I never went to St Louis to see the brewery but have seen the one in New Hampshire. I can tell you we all better take a GOOD LOOK at ourselves..the way we live and the “it doesn’t affect me” attitude. As long as people with money and no connection to a community are allowed to operate like this..we are all going to end up the same way…out of a job or working for peanuts..

In the meantime…drink some Sam Adams brewed in Boston!

Eric, that’s more than a little bit over the top. I don’t think the Busches had much choice–the real owners of A-B told them to get a deal done.

As for foreign companies not owning anything here, if you’d like to destroy the economy, that’s your choice I guess.

You could not pay me enough to fly in that Stella-Blimp over St. Louis

As an STL ex-pat (now living in the SW US), I was shocked when the news first broke of what I NEVER would have thought could happen in my lifetime (or EVER!). Until a few years ago, I was a lifelong STL resident, and over the last 25-30 years have watched time and time again as companies leave, get bought or merge. I look at my hometown with different eyes now, and I have to admit that it looks like the City is dying. Ask the McDonald Douglas, SW Bell, Ralston, TWA, May and other folks how the politically correct talk of the “conquerors” sounds about 18 months into the “new ownership”…
Is it going to take a new “railroad boom” for STL to be back on the map, or do we just count ourselves among an increasingly long list of middle-america wanna-be towns, as more of the country’s population (read business growth) migrates away from the heartland?
At the end of the day, are we really left with (relatively) cheap cost of living and the best baseball fans on the planet as the only things we can really tout about STL? If so, I don’t like the look of the future for the City.

I feel like I have been suddenly dumped by a girlfriend of 3 years..

tc–SW Bell didn’t get bought out. It just left. It bought AT&T.

In a selfish kind of way, I’m worried about the quality of the product A-B will be selling. I moved out of the area about twelve years ago but I still drink Bud (Busch, when I can find it) and the familiar taste always takes me back home. I’m concerned that cutting costs means a little cheaper materials going into the beer and a noticable drop in quality. Eastern Europeans won’t notice but we will.

Cost cutting also means fewer jobs and more automation. It’s the people who take pride in what they do that has kept the company great - a machine won’t care. And management will start to disappear slowly but steadily until you wake up one morning and the headquarters of A-B is in an office building somewhere far, far away from the production facilities and more interested in the balance sheet than the quality of the beer the company makes.

A-B, I still love you but don’t screw this up. You will never have the brand loyality in Eastern Europe that you have here.

This will be a drastic change for those who work at Anheuser-Busch. It’s not going to affect the local bars. Boycotting their products won’t do anything. It would take many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions for it to be effective.

We’ve had over $100,000 in A-B stock before they talked about mergers. All it’s done is gone up…great for us.

My wife has been employed at the brewery for over 30 years. We’re all wondering what will happen in the long run as far as cutbacks go.

Put yourself in the investors shoes. You’ve got billions invested, someone offers you a chance to cash it in for billions more… Are you going to say no? I didn’t think so.

That’s the thing guys, the dollar isn’t weak yet, guys. There are more of these take overs to come… and many more chickens that must come home to roost. When our politicians blinded supported Bush’s agenda of massive deficit spending *combined with tax cuts*, they encouraged this to happen. The dollar still has a long way to drop if you look at economic analysis.

Skippy–once again, the dollar’s decline is due to the TRADE deficit, not the BUDGET deficit. Japan and most developed European economies have trade deficits that are as large as ours as a % of GDP (the metric that really matters). The effects of the recent spending binge and tax cut deserve scrutiny, but not for weakening the dollar.

Will this be a good deal or a bad deal for St. Louis region ? Not for myself, but then I’m not sitting on a chunk of AB stock wringing my hands on the money that was make in a fit of American greed to sell for the top dollar.
St. Louis as the mid-west gateway of unemployment, broken promises, and low-end wages for the mid-class people to endure from paycheck to paycheck this was not a surpise.
I have made my purchase at the store to support a Missouri based product not owned my the board’s or shareholders greed.
To all this Schlafly is for you , I have purchased my last AB product.

Who cares? Mixed drinks are better anyway.

STL? Oh no! Now you have to actually make a choice for yourself on what to drink based on what you like, not where you live. Until then you can keep talking about which high school you went to 10 years ago.

Instead of worrying about this problem enjoy what you have left. Once Pujols goes St. Louis is totally gone.

Why do you think St. Louis Bread Co goes by Panera everywhere else?

So what. It’s time for the communist chinese to start making all of our products anyway. There’s absolutely no reason a country should ever make any of the products it consumes. Besides the communist love America and Baby Jeebus and Santa Claws and they love Juan “Amnesty” McCain too.

My heart is just breaking. One more company that is in foreign hands and the Middle class will suffer again. Not to mention what a great company it has been to work for. I have worked under the grandfather who loved the animals. The father and now the youngest, and its like loosing my family. Guess I’m just emotional about the whole thing. I hope that the people that are already worth millions are happy.I also wonder if they even care about the ones that will have hard times because of it. No I really don’t think so. I’m sure someone is rolling over in their graves thou.

One time I saw the Busch’s at a basebal game opening and as Lord Busch’s mouth opened sunbeams shot out and the Earth was basked in the glow of Lord Busch’s prescence and then moonbeams came out of his ass.

If InBev wants to make a good impression on St. Louis they should fix the hole next to Busch Stadium by the All Star Game. This would show there committment to St. Louis.

Paul,

Sounds like are stauch supporter of globalization, and is part of the problem that is destroying this country. You are great at spinning things to be what they are not. What a great Republican pundit you are. Talking in many, many circles with nothing that you say adding up to what is truly happening and has happened in our econonmy and the reasons for it.

to the person that said employees have to say goodbye to their laptops,cellphones,blackberries, expense accounts, and luxury xmas parties.
What in the world are you talking about??? Xmas parties gone several years ago. Expense accounts,cellphone, blkberries??? Mid level-to senior level. They LIVE on them because you know, 24/7 connections just like global expansion…..just have to have it. Laptop?? My brother would love to throw his in the Mississippi. That is not for him, it is for AB to allow him work from where ever he is. Vacation, xmas day, family dinners, VACATION, middle of the night etc. But that is what he does. 60 hours plus a week, and only salary. Not the middle or senior level manager salary either.
So, what did Brito mean by cuts with Computer Technology? Hmmm I.T dept maybe? Well you can add another 1500 plus skilled employees to the undempoyement line I guess. InBev outsources their I.T. area overseas.
This is going to get whole lot worse , I hope there are a lot of global companies out there to hire these poor souls.

I am sure glad that they asked Warren Buffet what he thought of the idea. WTF of course he would approve. How about asking what the employees think. Do we have such a short memory about how bad we got f****d by American Airlines, and Macy’s? Ask the employees of TWA and Famous Barr how well they were treated by their take overs. The audacity these businessmen have to postulate that this is a good thing for St Louis, HA! it is only good for the rich to get richer.

St. Louis is not about to become the next Detroit…it IS the next Detroit. Our city is now one that people around the world will say, “St. Louis. Where is that? I haven’t heard of it…and you will undoubtedly respond…It’s near Chicago…in the middle.” At least before you could point to the nearest pub and say, “it’s where the company that brews Budweiser is located…ah OK!” Sad to watch a city go down one business at a time. And to AB IV…nice to be born into a wonderful business and then get FILTHY rich off of it. First generation earns it…the second spends it…and the third BLOWS IT. Slightly modified in your case but you get the point. Enjoy your billions while the city you supposedly love slowly erases itself from your nearest world map. Someone get me a cold American owned beer!

I find it so disheartening that Americans are so fickle. The Board of Directors have a job to do and that is to provide the best value it can to shareholders. Shareholders were already clammoring for them to sell at $65 per share and would have never stood for them to reject the bid of $70. If they had tried to fight it, InBev would have kept raising the price and then come in and ripped the company apart to make the extra money back. The Board of Directors did not want to sell A-B, but they had a job to do and had to put emotions aside. They sold when they did to save as many employees as possible and to at least have a voice in what happens. The company still provides jobs to your friends and families. This is going to be hard enough without all of the ridicule and losing even more beer sales. All that will happen is more people will end up without jobs. Then InBev can really take everything away from St. Louis. I think we need to show them that we are strong and we stick by what we know is a good beer!

D. Walker–no, I’ve just spent too long in the real world where we advance together, instead of in the fantasy world where we can do it all on our own in America.

There are real consequences from globalization that we have to deal with, but that doesn’t mean we can stick our head in the sand and pretend it’s the 1950’s again. European countries have tried to do it, and they’ve not benefitted for doing so.

Setting up barriers just means that (a) we sell less overseas (eliminating US jobs) and (b) we have to pay more for everything. Those are not good outcomes for anyone. That would reduce the standard of living of Americans, not increase it.

I’m not arguing there isn’t pain associated with globalization. Globalization tends to centralize pain (job losses, etc.) while the benefits are spread among everyone. As we’ve seen over the last 100 years, when we add up all the gains we’ve make incredible advances as both a nation and as a globe. We get to benefit when a Japanese company makes a car that uses less oil. We get to profit when Apple makes a cool phone that people around the world want. These benefits don’t exist if we didn’t have globalization. We would not have as developed an economy and our standard of living would be lower. But, Kit Bond and Claire McCaskill think they’ll get more votes for whining about InBev buying A-B than they will for accepting free market.

It’s not an easy world for the blue collar worker–I recognize that. Think about what we offer as a society in terms of education, benefits, infrastructure, etc. That all has a cost. Places like China cannot afford to have the things that we have. We couldn’t pay for that all if we didn’t have something that differentiated us from China. The difference is that our work products add more value than theirs do. That’s how we’re able to afford all of this.

We have to gear our economy to deal with this fact. We gain that advantage in a variety of ways. For example, Boeing makes better planes than anyone else in the world. The problem is, it’s harder to add this value if we’re making a good. That good has to include the cost of operating in America. It has to pay for the education system and everything else we have. There’s only so much value to be added in manufacturing.

It’s much easier to add that value by taking advantage of our education system and providing a service. It’s a fact of life. As our standard of living increases, we have to shift more and more away from manual labor in order to continue to differentiate ourselves from countries with labor but without the intellectual capital. The only way we can keep our standard of living is to do so. We then have to export our education and our highly specialized goods to the best of our ability to make up for the fact that we have to buy things from around the world that we either don’t make (like TVs) or don’t have on hand (like oil). This is how we work as a nation. It’s the only way America can survive with its current standard of living.

Lisa–When it comes to IT, it’s not so much outsourcing as it is getting rid of duplication. A-B and InBev will have their own systems for everything. Some things stay (like those related to the US distribution network), while other things will go, like A-B’s bookkeeping software.

Paul I am glad you are a voice of reason in this blog. Econ 101 is the prescription I’d make for all these bellyaches in here…

By the way, most of the AB stockholders are American. They will get $70 a share. Thanks you, InBev, for pumping over 50 BILLION into American pockets. That money will go to countless 401k programs, mutual funds, pension funds, helping people’s retirement. It will also be taken by the Warren Buffets of the world and reinvested, in large part in other Ameriacn companies, like the growing biotech sector right here in St Louis. This may hurt some here, but it is an absolute windfall for this country as a whole. Be like Paul everyone, and see the big picture here!

Tim–thanks.

Only bad. I can’t see what good will come out of this except one-time profit for existing shareholders and some big bucks for the top executives.

All these negative comments seem to forget that the company was and is owned by shareholders not the Busch family. Shareholders buy stock for it to appreciate. If you want to long for the good ole days go take a brewery tour, and have a free beer at the end. Part of the tradition of Bud was growing market share and profit…they haven’t done that for a very long time. Now growing profit and market share can continue AND the bricks and mortar will still be on Pestalozi to go visit. Had someone not stepped in soon to wake up Bud, there may not have been a brewery to even go visit since they were running it without reguard to the owners (the shareholders).

As for boycotting the products and only buying “American,” it’s a bit short sighted and old thinking. We live in a global society with a global economy. Thinking like that in this century is equivalent to only buying in “white” neighborhoods or drinking from “white” water fountains. We are all people and we all have something to contribute.

Applaude the business saavy and remember the history with a smile…then move on and work on solving real problems in the world. Congrats AB, you did what was right with the big picture in mind.

“In a selfish kind of way, I’m worried about the quality of the product A-B will be selling. I moved out of the area about twelve years ago but I still drink Bud (Busch, when I can find it) and the familiar taste always takes me back home. I’m concerned that cutting costs means a little cheaper materials going into the beer and a noticable drop in quality. Eastern Europeans won’t notice but we will.”

Well Anthony, we all in Eastern Europe are impatiently waiting for your rice based watered down beer - people do not call it beer here.

I would like to thank all the people of Missouri who voted for George W. Bush and his economic policies that lead to a weak dollar and allowed foreign companies to easily purchase established American companies like AB. Thank you for voting with the “moral majority” to stop homosexuality, abortions, and liberal judges. Oh yeah, nothing has changed on that front. Good job. Maybe take a second to think in the next election eh?

This deal stinks. Has anyone forgotten what happended with TWA, Carl Ichan and St. Louis?

I hope Carlos Brito likes dealing with the Teamsters Union representing AB workers and also the people of St. Louis who see AB as part of the fabric of the city.

The best thing would be if the United States said no deal. I’m glad August Busch Jr. is not around to this.

Sam Kramer
Camp Eggers
Kabul, Afghanistan

Hey, board. Why did you take my post down? I got insulted and accused of being a liar and you take MY post down?

Hey, C-Ya,
You’re wrong. It’s not “George Bush’s Fault”. I bet you think EVERYTHING is G.B.’s fault. Remember, the A-B board did not HAVE to accept the offer. They did on their own accord. They’re the one’s who ’sold’ the company.

This is unacceptible apparrently AMERICA IS FOR SALE.Our so called GOVT. has borrowed so much money from communist CHINA thatjust maybe this a..hole BRITA A.K.A. INBEV can pay off this debt and become the first PRESIDENT ever elected by greedy STOCKHOLDERS AND WALLSTREET.I will never understand this kind of STOCKHOLDER GREED.How much money does a person really need to survive.WARREN BUFFETT CAN KISS MY A… As for me right now i have no choice but to switch my brand of beer.HELLO SCHLAFLY BEER MADE IN ST.LOUIS MO.AMERICAN MADE AMERICAN OWNED.

If George Woodhead Bush would sell Texas instead and use the money to pay down the debt he ran up then the exchange rate of the US dollar would be more and foreign entities would not be able to buy us up. The United States is for $ale right now to the highest bidders. That’s what the “Contract ON America” Guys really meant! How Patriotic!

I drink Lemp. I’m supporting the “original” St Louis lager. I’m sick of the big corporate giants like AB pushing out the little guys. Soon you’ll see AB do some silly things, like open theme parks or have “man of genius” commercials to push there beer on unsuspecting Americans. Hell, they might even buy the naming rights to some baseball stadium and force taxpayers to chip in to build a new one. They’re only the “king of beers” because of corporate greed and bullying out smaller breweries.

You know, this happened once before when Eberhard Anheuser (a German national!) bought the Bavarian Brewing Company. For a while, it was brewed in Washington, Missouri, as Eberhard Anheuser and Company. Two of his daughters married German national brothers, Adolphus and Ulrich Busch. Adolphus wasn’t a brewer– he was a beer salesman. When the next generation took over the company, they abandoned Washington, and moved to St. Louis.

Americans, (even the DAR and SAR) rarely made beer here until all these German foreigners came in and brought their vile, frothy evil smelling drink with them. Good upstanding Americans didn’t get why these burghers in the short pants wanted to change the fine upstanding French and English St. Louis society. If not for their use as Civil War cannon fodder, the Germans (insert your Dutch, Silesian, Prussian or Bavarian ethnic slur here) would have never rose above being considered hard-working slightly slow proletariat who spoke funny and read these newspapers covered with black scratching, long words and black dots where letters shouldn’t have dots.

And, yeah, whose name has been synonymous with St. Louis beer? Not the master brewer, but the beer salesman son-in-law.

Anheuser-Busch as “American” beer? Surely you jest.

Well thank you St Louis. And to get the facts straight, SABMILLER merged with Coors in North America. Coors is now MillerCoors. If anyone paid attention they would know that. I am a proud resident of Denver, Colorado and we still have our Coors Brewery and its not going anywhere. So you guys throw your hissy fit and boycott AB. That will just make more money for Coors and Denver. You are just screwing yourselves. Think about all the AB employees, all the bars in downtown STL that proudly sell and promote AB products. All that beer is profit for those companies. Go ahead, you already lost your brewery, why dont you lose all your bars,night clubs,and all entertainment associated with AB. It will be the dumbest thing you can do!

Bad deal. Always assume the worst.

ok Paul, I am with Tim, you sound like an econ professor I had in college. So, what are we gonna do now Paul……really. Brito saw this big plate of steak and lobster. Looked great, he just had to have it. Now he gets to chew it and swallow it without choking.(or throwing it back up) I worry (so does my brother) more about the culture clash within the organization. He works with a great bunch of people. Hard working (massive hours per week at 40 hr pay) anything to get the jobs done. Brito and minions have a terrible history. Like I said earlier, hopefully he will want to make this something great for STL in Britos name. But I just have this gut feeling we have seen so much of the same ole’ thing for the past several years that we will all be sooo surprised when something huge hits. (not truly surprised, but you know what I mean)

So Prof. what you got to say??

Lisa–your two main points make sense–this deal can turn out to be disastrous for InBev, and it’s not like the deal is a great thing for St. Louis even if it is good for both the US and global economy.

I do think the deal work out well, given the various ways it can add value to InBev. It all comes down to execution now.

Personally, Brito is being treated like more of a punching bag than he really should be. There are quite a few people who benefit by making him look bad. We need to remember that he’ll soon be the boss of thousands of local workers, and it doesn’t do any good to rag him constantly for being a good CEO in the eyes of his shareholders. He has earned his reputation as a cost cutter, but he’s also earned a reputation for passing those cost savings on to customers. InBev is famous (or infamous, to the competition) for initiating and winning price wars.

I was at the lake this weekend and saw ABusch IV flying his helicopter to his lake house. I hope he has made his family proud!

Here is a huge consideration to take into account while STL is duped into thinking the N.A. HQ will stay in STL. It’s called Lambert “regional” Airport. Inbev is Belgian, and it’s a long flight, even longer considering the lay over in Chicago. What does this mean, 12 hour flights blow, tacking on another couple hours getting out of O’Hare makes no sense. My spouce is in the business for a competitor, and word has it, that a few months ago, some execs from InBev were scouting class A office space in Chicago’s loop. This does not surprise me, business means speed and lay-overs and lack of flights do not go hand in hand, expect within a year year or two for them to move the HQ to Chicago since their market of products are 10:1 versus the STL markets. This is a fact and I told you so.

Now, my rant on the city and the metro region. The locals and their lack of “sincere openess” to outsiders sends the wrong message. When we were in town there for a few years we liked the area but the people never made us feel welcomed constantly asking what high school we attended. When we responded we were from D.C. they looked at us like deer caught in the headlights kind of look. This must change if the area is ever to be taken serious by the “outside” business community.

The whole county city division is a killer to. Seems everybody is building convention centers, arenas, and setting speed traps to take from one community to put intheir pocket. Hello…this does not work. Why there are 92 municipalities in STL each siphoning each other baffles me. Bella Villa, Huntleigh (poulation 17 with it’s own PD too!) and St.George just to name a few should not exist. When out of town business comes to town for meeting and or conventions, we are not thinking Bella Villa or Wildwood, we are thinking STL and what’s going on right now in the heart of the city. I am sorry to say this, but for years the city has been on life support, now I hear it flat-lining, will the last person please turn off the lights! Where is the leadership? where is the city and county going to join forces tp put real strenghth in numbers? Why do most inhabitants of metro STL not even care about the city only the lenghth of their suburban lawn? You better look at the city, if it dies so will the region in terms of an outside perspective, business perspective, airport service and infrastructure that takes real tax monies. Wake up STL, AB is gone and it’s not W Bush’s fault either, did he sign NAFTA? 1993 was Clinton, how short are memories are. Things are buzzing here in Chicago, cranes on every corner, people and commerce going in and out, Miller-Coors moving their HQ downtown, this is leadership folks, tell Mayor Slay to come for a visit to see how things get done.

The purchase of A-B is unfortunate. The perfect storm of circumstances allowed this to happen, no one factor is to blame. It is appropriate for St. Louisans to mourn the loss of A-B’s independence and express concern for the future. It is also essential for St. Louisans to continue to support the new A-B which, even with job cuts, will continue to employ thousands of local area residents and will continue to brew Budweiser in our own backyard. The new company will be a good deal for St. Louis if, and only if, we embrace it.

Oh, with the loss of the big dollar salaries, the liklihood the Rams and Blues survive in STL is in real jeaoprdy long-term. The big dollar jobs go, the low level cutomer support jobs move in and their you go. I love hockey, at the Savvis, the lower bowl was totally empty with hardly any corporate butts in seats. The more these jobs go, the more likely only baseball survives in STL. Sports today are real business and run by some greedy hungry billionaires. No corportions no team it’s that simple. STL is a nice town, I hope the mind set changes, the upside potential of STL is huuuge, many assets like the parks and cultural attractions, don’t let them go to piss (Bud is Clyesdale Piss anyway), they are jewels.

Listen up hillbillies: There is not one item of property you own that is not foreign made. From your terrible China-made kids toys to the cheap walmart am/fm receivers and sub-woofers in your mazada pick-ups. This isn’t 1958. It’s 2008. Stop calling the kettle black and realize the true problem; we should stop whining when our companies get bought out on a weak US Dollar and start asking why our economy has gotten to such a poor state that flagship US-owned companies are consumed by Euro-giants.

True American has now become Coors. Deal with it.

Also, InBev is a lean mean machine and folks trust me, Mr Brito has earned his name as the butcher of Wall St, the cuts will be huge and deep, this is the way it goes. So many things we own today are from all over, heck my neighbors Saturn Vue has a Honnda engine in it, and we all remeber the Saturn commercials from way back when touting we are an American car company…blah blah. When the cuts hit they will hit hard, the Admin positions and Marketing positions are gonna get whacked, the blue collar jobs should remain pretty solid though as long as people embrace the product.InBev does not like organized labor so that should be intersting to watch since STL is no longer a strong union town like it once was. For years AB’s market share was sinking, and trying to push “Mich Ultra Lime” is not a way to increase shareholder value, no one drinks that shiit anyway. You folks may love your AB, but did you know that you folks paid the highest prices in the country for AB products? It’s true so if you thing the Busch’s care about you, thr hometown crowd, ask them why STL paid on average 28% more for the products versus most everyone else? It’s the blind trying to lead the blind.

Go ahead, St. Louis – stay in the denial you’re so good at.
Say goodbye to the parks, the zoo, the gardens, the community centers, the museums, the symphony, the theatres, and all of the wonderful things that AB helped fund, keeping this city barely afloat – there won’t be a swift, fatal blow – it will be a slow bleed. And eventually say goodbye to the brewery. Playing nice will be the name of the game…for awhile…

You’ll get mad at me because you know it’s true.

The King is Dead.
So is the city.

Happiest day of my life is when I moved away.

REALLY GUYS, ITS JUST BEER…. I MEAN IF IT MEANS TAT MUCH TO YOU THEN HEAD OVER TO MILLER AND COORS. THEY TASTE BETTER ANYWAY. BESIDE THERE ARE MUCH BIGGER CAUSES TO BE WORRIED ABOUT BESIDE A COMPANY WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED IN BREAKING UP FAMILIES TO TO ALCOHOLISM. SO GOOD BYE KING AND ENJOY YOUR MONEY, YOUR WERE ONLY WORTH ABOUT 48 BUCKS A SHARE ANYWAY…

St. Louis ceased to be relevant a generation ago. The loss of AB, while tragic, is just another chapter in the decline of a once great American city. But if you’re looking for someone/something to blame for this particular chapter, look no further than the Bush Administration. Its policies, eg, Irag and dependence on foreign oil, have so devalued the dollar that when the Europeans come shopping we look like a flea market– bargains everywhere.

This is a sad day for America. This goes to show that we will sell our children for the right price. What will $5 a share get anybody? To see a significant difference you would have to already be rich. Another question is why didn’t Anheuser buy Inbev? They are relatively the same size company. In five years there will be half the breweries in the states as there are now. Somebody call Dubai, I hear Neveda is for sale.

“carlos” I am going to cut to the chase….you are full of crapola. Chicago loop? Really???? Do you honestly think Brito is shopping for more real estate in the US of A ???? Leased or not. He will have so much real estate between breweries, offices, parks, vacation spots etc he can already choke. Convenience is NOT his middle name. So I am going to go out on a limb and say that there is PLENTY of office space in the U.S where the many breweries reside that Brito can take up residence. The “Donald” is already choking as we speak on his brillance in building a hotel/condo/rental/luxury etc property at Wacker and Michigan.

I am partially with you on your 2nd to last post. Sports is nonsense and the prices are NUTS. Sports rely upon a lot of corporate dollars to buy the luxury craziness that exist.
Hopefully this is a rude awakening to the city. WAKE UP, it is slipping out of your hands. Ballpark village (tax $$$ taken and ran) Lazy, useless part time CITY aldermen asking for GAS money is laughable. One said it was “cump change”. Hmmmm gas money for someone that drives maybe 5 miles round trip a few times a month and needs money to fill up his cadillac (he stated it on TV) VS. schools, business, infrastructure, mass transit (laughable) bridges etc. Yeah, get some people in the city that will boot out all of the craziness and do what is right. Take it head on….a few years it will all look great.

Now, enter Brito……..(the real one) you can make it look great too.

Carlos,
You spoke some truth. I left the Lou for Greener pastures some time ago. One thing though…
Compared to the East Coast Chicago is, and is well-known to be a cow town.

HI, If your not happy with the sale of your local Beer company and want to get the message across that you as the buyers of this product. Well do not whine its simple do not buy the product get everybody you know around the country to support St Lousis in avoid buying the Beer show your distaste in the the sale of the company get the message across far and wide do this for a month and you will make a difference if you want to keep what your proud of make a stand do not whinge if the troops can fight overseas then do the same for what you are proud of at home on American soil.

Whatever. [pops open a Schlafly]

It’s a great deal for the 1,000’s of wealthy individuals and funds who own a lot of the stock. However, it’s not a great deal for the city of St. Louis, a city that has seen their great homegrown companies snapped up by larger ones.

In the past year we have lost AG Edwards (A LOT of jobs lost), The Sporting News, and now an American icon in Anheuser-Busch. Nothing is sacred anymore so companies in the region must do what they can to prevent an unsolicited takeover.

That being said, I also think it’s a testament to the City of St. Louis and the people that have worked hard over the decades to grow these great companies into desirable acquisition companies for those who are unwilling to grow them themselves.

It truly is a sad day for the city and the region. I just hope the damage to the people and organizations who depended on A-B is minimized as much as possible.

Boycott, Boycott. People say that we should stop buying A-B products or anything owned by Inbev. Some say that will hurt the workers. We should have started the boycott when the first news of a takeover came out. Sure it might hurt the workers, but here’s how st. louis can help the situation. The makers of Lemp have expressed they want to go regional then perhaps national. Buy lemp, Buy St. Louis beer, such as schafly. if Lemp becomes a major distributor again and expansion happens at a rapid pace in the next five years, then that will be great for all in St. louis. If profit suffers from the buying of A-B, then brito might have to let that part of the company go in the next few years. Two possibilities, it goes back the the Busch family or another investor loyal to the St. louis/ American icon, i.e. the cardinals.

Change yourself into a “retail voter”. Voting can have an impact. It’s a part of being “free”. But, there’s a price to freedom. Vote NOT to drink alchohol. (is the price too much?) I vote NOT to drink. I vote NOT to smoke. I vote against the media (I got rid of ALL my TV’s - I don’t own one). I’ve voted against cable. (I don’t have it). And, for those who complain about Wal-mart, just stop going there. Target is NOT that much more expensive.

I am a Belgian , I like the US and I like to drink Bud , this is a beer You Americans should be proud of , I do not like the take over either but it is a free world market , how many compagnies are not taken over by Americans ? Budweiser will still be an great American Beer after the take over , and may we will be able to drink and enjoi this very good American lager beer in more pubs and bars overhere in Europe I hope.
BUD (is still) KING OF BEERS (I don’t like Stella or Becks ).

Friendly Greetings,

Spare me the “American Icon” business. That “iconic image” was very carefully manufactured by advertising executives in conference rooms in St. Louis.

In fact, that’s the real strength of AB - adverstising prowess. Advertising, NOT brewing. That’s the truth.

By the way, that “iconic image” fades further every mile you get from St. Louis.

Think the people in Minneapolis or Seattle care about AB? About as much as the people of St. Louis care about businesses in those cities.

Dear InBev and soon to be ex-shareholders: I have thrown out my remaining AB’s, and now raise my cold Schlafly to cheer you and your 30 pieces of silver. You are real men of genius.

just read where berkshire hathaway (warren buffett) is buying a large European reinsurance company. How dare that weasel,little piece of s**t buy a European icon. Doesn’t he know Europe is not for sale!

An Old Path
With the purchase of AB by InBev we see a continued strain streaching accross the ethos of corporate America. AB isn’t the last nor has it been the first in a long line of corporate America rewarding the short term, fast cash versus the long term steady and safe investments. It is easy in business to cut costs, to reduce the salaried payroll and remove perks, to hold sway over your purchasers and make them tow your cost line is an easy and not too daunting a task. What is difficult is to balance the costs of doing business with that of creating brand loyality among all its stakeholders.

What we see in Brito is a man that can create intense loyality among one group of stakeholders and none of the others that are part of the brand. He has reduced costs by reducing brand growth and development. He has sold loyality by taking away the pride and steadfast devotion of a companies customers and employees. That is why he has to continue to purchase companies, his brand of corporate leadership is one that must have growth thru aquisition to increase revenue as he forfeits the very strength of those companies he obtained in the first place.

The very nature of the stockmarkets habit of rewarding higher and higher profit returns is the path that made the purchase of AB inevitable. The shareholders are just following the beat of the music. Increase revnue is less importaint, as is showing ever greater than predicted lower costs. In turn protracted growth is less importaint, than the quick return on investment.

In the end it is this lack of vision that is damning to American. The turnover of a company to create fast cash is no different than having a creditcard to pay for another. This cyclical system and the belief in higher profits every year as a sign of strength is what damns those companies that report to stock markets. Gone is the belief that stocks and business are longterm investments. Gone too is the idea of purchasing shares of a company as OWNERSHIP. It is about realizing the strength of your dollar now, not later. It is playing the lottery looking for that next great pick.

The end will come of AB, and others like it, no matter the name. Customer and employee loyality will no longer be the basis of corporate decsion making as consumers are increasingly viewed as ducklings that can be easily led to the waterhole, and maybe that is valid, look at Walmart for instance. Brito will be long gone when the companies that he has purchased are washed away by the greed of the corporate world, and no one will care.

Corporations come and go; change is inevitable. I wonder if there will be a rallying cry if Breadco is bought by Pepsico, or something like that. Moreover, how many bakeries do you think Panera ran out of business?

And the attitude that pervades here is defeatist. Is St Louis a one-Clydesdale town? Is AB all that there is here?

agree mike. I left st. louis quite a few years ago. I have lived in several metropolitan areas since, all job related moves. When I come back to visit relatives, I am always amazed at the the serious decline in St.Louis. Areas I used haunt are now scary in the daytime, let alone at night. Downtown, where i used to work, is like a ghost town. Leadership is either lacking or corrupt, all the people seem to care about is baseball and beer, no pride in neighborhoods like the old days. North County has went to hell, St. Charles looks like they have no zoning laws at all. I am nearing retirement and always thought I would move back home, but guess I won’t. I have always been a big city guy, but I have seen other cities, and they just offer more, less crime and not so dirty and gritty as the old home place. I think you have to see it from the outside looking in to realize the decline. It didn’t happen overnight, just little by little. Sad but true.

I’m biased…my wife works at AB and will probably lose her job with this purchase.

However, for over 25 years I have been drinking Bud products. My mom designed a Budweiser distributorship when it was family-owned and one of the top distributors in the country. I remember the way they kept their trucks impeccably clean and rims polished. Mom required our family to drink Budweiser because they were responsible for her paycheck…and we gladly did so. It became a source of pride and we wholeheartedly embraced the Budweiser family of beers.

After college, I spent time in different cities for different jobs..but was always loyal to AB and was proud it was an American beer. I was proud to wear my Bud Light hat wherever I went and always turned my label out when I was drinking one..whether it was in Coors country or Miller country. For me, it was bragging rights that I was drinking the King of Beers. I’ve always been proud of my country and believed that I was contributing to the greater good in some very, very small way by drinking this American beer.

Bud Light and Budweiser have been there through all the trials and tribulations that each of us have. They’ve comforted me after losing a job and have helped celebrate the birth of my boys. Champagne was never popped for celebrations like the Rams winning the Super Bowl or Cardinals winning the World Championship….it was a bottle of Bud Light. When I went to Mexico last year, I ordered Bud Light at the pool bar…checking the born on date to see how fresh it was…and it was fresher than some of the fruits in the fancy drinks I saw people drinking.

As I’ve seen American beers being bought by foreign conglomerates, I’ve developed an arrogance with my drinking because I was “drinking American” and have become an avid supporter of “buying American”. Drinking Bud Light has become my “GO USA” cheer.

The purchase of AB by INBEV was something I could never forsee. I drank a Budweiser last night and it just didn’t seem the same…and never will.

Sappy? Sure. Melodramatic? You bet. I make no apologies for loving my AB beer. It’s been a friend for a long time. Will the world end? Nah. Will St. Louis survive? Yep. It’s just hard to see old friends say goodbye.

Casey,

The market rewards profits whether they are gained in the short term or the long term or through higher revenue or lower costs.

Billions wouldn’t be flowing into things like pharmaceuticals or alternative energy technologies that take years to develop if that weren’t the case.

What’s the easiest way for a company to cut costs? Scale. Getting bigger. The deal isn’t about cutting revenue and cost–it’s about making the same amount of revenue and cutting out some of the costs. Your comments do not reflect this reality. Companies are out there looking to get smaller unless they have a very good reason for doing so (like the automakers or the airlines).

InBev has done a pretty good job keeping their brands. Their revenue is not going down. They’re struggling in the UK, but they are doing fine just about everywhere else.

Shares are ownership. That’s why people purchase them. Money managers are now less likely to sit back and let management do whatever they want–I agree with that. That is what has changed.

Is that really a bad thing? If investors want to expect a company they own to increase its profitability, that is their prerogative. Companies are in business TO MAKE MONEY. This is not a new idea. They aren’t there just to give employees a warm and fuzzy feeling; corporations, by their nature, are designed to be profit making machines for their owners.

It’s naive to suggest that companies and investors never consider the impact their decisions have on consumers and employees. For example, InBev wouldn’t have bought A-B if it thought the workers were all going to quit or if it thought no one would buy their beer in the future.

Please don’t boycott A-B. Not only is that reaction rather juvenille, but it won’t help our A-B neighbors/employees. Did we boycott Chrysler when Daimler-Benz (a German company) owned it? No, because that would have affected the Fenton employees. How many A-B “boycotters” are union? What would the Teamsters say about you boycotting a product their members are making? Granted, this cut is deep and it’s fresh, so it hurts right now. If we as a community simply ignore it, it will fester and become worse. If we accept it, deal with it, and begin to “heal” as a community, we’ll move forward. Lest we all forget, there used to be a McDonnell-Douglas, an A.G. Edwards, and other breweries like Lemp and Griesedieck. Times change, businesses change. Sometimes they stay. Sometimes they leave. Sometimes they change hands, and many continue to employ St. Louisans.

July 14, 2008

My friends –

I am, for lack of a better word, stunned.

As many of you know, my loyalty to Budweiser predates my legal age of drinking. As one of Anheuser-Busch’s most loyal customers and for many years a modest stockholder in the company, I am all but devastated.

To me, and I would hope millions like me, Budweiser was not just a beer. It was more than the delicious fruit of a St. Louis brewing dynasty spanning over three centuries of American history. A dynasty headed by the members of the Anheuser and Busch families for six generations. Born on the banks of the Mississippi River in St. Louis in 1876, Budweiser soon conquered the American palate. It was the American beer. It was the creamy collared frosty glass of gratitude for the work ethic of this country. It was the loyal and trusted brand. It was the same every time and everywhere. The famous Budweiser beer was available worldwide. Literal legions of loyal employees made certain that an ice cold Bud in St. Louis tasted the same in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Rome, and London. It was the universal “gold standard” of brewing. It was, dare I say, nectar of the Gods.

But it wasn’t just good to drink Budweiser… It was AMERICAN to drink Budweiser. Around the globe a cold Budweiser was always available to a thirsty traveler. It was not a fashion statement to drink a Bud in a foreign land. It was an American’s patriotic duty! It said, “I am here in your country. I am drinking an American beer”. Befitting of the libation the truly American toast of, “Up yours!” was a way to remind all of those of supreme American power and sovereignty. Even the label was patriotic. In its classic red, white, and blue garb, it told all who saw it, “You are looking at an American original”. It even had the words “Genuine” in gold letters on each side to further thrust America into the face of all who gazed upon it. Now, sad to say, it is all gone.

So is this what we have come to? Are we willing to simply sell out America’s beer to the Europeans? Are we willing to give up all that is holy? The last true bastion of all that is American? What our forefathers risked life, fortunes, and their sacred honor for? To liberate and free themselves from the chains of European domination! Have we conceded that the great leviathan of a marketing machine on Pestalozzi Street that is Anheuser-Busch owes nothing to the form of government and country that allowed it to exist in the first place? The company motto of “Making Friends is Our Business” seems to have been replaced with “Making Money is Our Business”. Sad to say, it has come to this.

What is next? Melting down the Liberty Bell for scrap metal? Selling off the treasures of the Smithsonian in a national garage sale? Changing the name of our country from the United States of America to the “50 Loosely Held Together Republics For Sale to the Highest Bidder”? My God! When the love of money overwhelms the patriotism and loyalty to our country, it is nothing shy of TREASON!

And today, with the news that a foreign interest, headquartered in Belgium with a CEO from Brazil, has purchased the whole Anheuser-Busch company, we must say farewell to an old and loyal friend.

Today, I enjoyed last “real” Budweiser that I will ever share with my son August A. Yurgec. Together, with our photo of August A. Busch, Jr. and my genuine 1890’s Anheuser-Busch beer glass, we toast to the memories.

So - here’s to you Gussie. I know you must be spinning in your grave! I can hear you now in that gravelly voice, “Over my dead body!”

We had fun while it lasted. Budweiser – 1876-2008.

I don’t believe it is a good deal. I’m holding out hope that enough of my fellow shareholders feel the same and will vote NO! I’m not willing to sell our icon. This is a company that has been financially, socially, and environmentally responsible.

Paul, you state:

< There are real consequences from globalization that we have to deal
< with, but that doesn’t mean we can stick our head in the sand and
< pretend it’s the 1950’s again. European countries have tried to do it,
< and they’ve not benefited for doing so.

Yes we must now deal with the fact that we are now global, and the fact that this globalization took place while we the people were all trusting our leaders and not really knowing what was going on until we were in over our heads. Yes, we are now forced not only to deal with it but, ACCEPT IT and attempt to elect leaders who now are willing to pass laws that able us to be more competitive in the way of education instead of all the political ideology that we have been victim of that have hurt the citizens of this country because our politicians went global without its citizens knowledge or our citizens being prepared. This was the responsibility of government, and they failed in their duty to include the citizens in on what was happening and the need to get serious about preparation. It was all orchestrated over a period of time knowing that this country was not prepared for such globalization and knowing that it would be devastating to our society.

Paul, you state:

< Setting up barriers just means that (a) we sell less overseas
< (eliminating US jobs) and (b) we have to pay more for everything. Those < are not good outcomes for.

We sell less overseas because we have never offered a better product that people overseas wanted except for aircraft. We also sell less overseas because we have NEVER manufactured anything that was known as a product in demand overseas.

Paul, you state:

< I’m not arguing there isn’t pain associated with globalization.
< Globalization tends to centralize pain (job losses, etc.) while the
< benefits are spread among everyone. As we’ve seen over the last 100
< years, when we add up all the gains we’ve make incredible advances as
< both a nation and as a globe.

Yes there is pain, lots of it for citizens. Please explain what benefits and great gains you are speaking about that our citizens are all gaining from globalization? Why are you not speaking about the pain that have not even begun because our government went head first into globalization without its citizens being prepared to compete. They were just plain stupid because they did not care and was stupidly consumed with self-interests, not the interests of the citizens and society.

Paul, you state:

< We get to benefit when a Japanese company makes a car that uses less oil.

This is the craziest thing that I have ever heard. Shouldn’t we be benefiting from a American developed product that uses less oil? Why isn’t our government and corporations interested in the little talent that we do have in this country. There are presently college kids successfully experimenting with converting automobiles into ones that use very little gasoline and it works! The talent in this area goes ignored, would you care to expound on why? Could it be because there was and is no real interest in developing automobiles to use less gasoline? I think so, all evidence points to just this.

Paul, you state:

< It’s not an easy world for the blue- collar worker–I recognize that.
< Think about what we offer as a society in terms of education, benefits, < infrastructure, etc. That all has a cost. Places like China cannot
< afford to have the things that we have.

When I think in terms of what the U.S. offer in terms of education compared to the foreigner’s countries who are being handed all the high tech jobs through the HB1 visas, (NAFTA), it shows a bleak picture for U.S. citizens not the picture that you are envisioning. The sad truth, even Americas who are high tech qualified are being replaced by foreigners because of cheaper labor instead of offering the American less pay. American’s high-tech qualified are being forced into temporary contract jobs offering no benefits. Benefits are being lost to Americans daily at frightening rates. Infrastructure, you are speaking about as if we are okay in that area? Our infrastructure is in desperate need of repair. It is in frightening condition.

Paul, you state:

< These benefits don’t exist if we didn’t have globalization. We would not < have as developed an economy and our standard of living would be lower.

I don’t know what country you are living in, but it sounds like you are speaking as a citizen of China or India Saudi Arabia etc.., countries who are actually experiencing the benefits that you are speaking about.

Paul, you state:

< The difference is that our work products add more value than theirs do. < That’s how we’re able to afford all of this.

What work products of the U.S. are you speaking about that add more value? And who are theirs?

Paul, you state:

< It’s much easier to add that value by taking advantage of our education
< system and providing a service. It’s a fact of life. As our standard of < living increases, we have to shift more and more away from manual labor < in order to continue to differentiate ourselves from countries with
< labor but without the intellectual capital.

Are you saying that a service industry is more valuable than having and production industry? Taking advantage of our education system in what way, advertising, business, degrees, all those interests of study that are non-technical? This is what it sounds like you are stating, and if it is I question your common sense, and you are too text-book orientated on many of your other thoughts.

Lastly, those who truly think as you do as our leaders with this political iodiology are the true traitors of America.

I was at Sea World orlando last week, standing in the barn watching the clydesdales and wondering what will happen to them if this deal goes thru. The idea of an American company that has always been a proud American tradition being sold to Inbev is nauseating. While I would like to think a boycott of the products would make a point, it will just result in the loss of jobs for Americans and more financial hardship. I wish our government would start blocking these overseas companies from the purchase of the few remaining American companies. My little brother works for Anheuser / Sea World….and the tension there is running really high as no one has any idea what is going to happen to the parks, animals or staff.

Also Paul

One other big thing here. You say:

< the dollar’s decline is due to the TRADE deficit, not the BUDGET deficit.

You are incorrect here also. You sound like those ones who are attempting to spin that it is a great thing that our dollar’s value is dropping because foreigners are spending so much money in the U.S. now. I have been hearing crazy financial analysis’ that holds this belief.

From the Cato Institute:

Some argue our large trade deficit (or current account deficit) is responsible for the fall in the dollar’s value. They have it backward. It is the flow of foreign investment dollars (the capital account) into the U.S. economy that drives the trade deficit. The U.S. economy’s higher return on capital than Europe or Japan for the last 20 years caused private foreign investors to buy U.S. stocks and bonds and other assets. In addition, foreign governments, particularly of China, Japan and other Asian states, have steadily increased their purchases of U.S. dollars as reserve backing for their own currencies.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=2483

I moved to St. Louis the weekend the Football Cardinals left town under cover of darkness. I worked for Venture Stores for 8 years working my way up from the warehouse to the IT Center before they closed. Then I joined the Navy and have lived in Virginia for the last 10 years. My folks still live in O’Fallon. I’ve been drinking Budweiser for 26 years. I have to say…..home just isn’t home anymore. Good luck to all the AB Employees. It looks like it’s Miller Time.

The report from Cato institute is so true today because due to the political ideology that has been taking place we cannot survive in this country without foreign investment and dependency on foreigners, we are at their mercy. We must accept this now, and American citizens are not even equipped to compete. We have had politicians who were traitors to the American people for a long time now.

The question is where do we go from here? We will never be the first rate powerful country that we were because your politicians sold us down the drain. It is too ironic for words, based on what they have been placing into White Americans psyche as to what they are to fear, having them fear all the wrong things for take their eyes off of what they were really doing, selling us all down the drain. This is why foreigners call us stupid.

d.walker, your a treat.

interesting article on page B3 in today’s wall street journal. Apparently, AB had a deal about done to acquire the rest of modelo, but then called InBev to see if they would offer more than the $65.00. Looks like they could have saved AB if they wanted too. Guess it is time to get off Brito’s case.

another incoherent posting from d.walker. What is the point?

To Mike Yurgec - Come on, Budweiser was not the only American beer. Nor is it today. Switch to an American beer and go on with life. You will probably find a beer you like better anyway. (And Bud Light was designed for woman and people who don’t really like the taste of beer but can’t admit it. No tears over that tastless brew.)

D Walker:

“Yes we must now deal with the fact that we are now global, and the fact that this globalization took place while we the people were all trusting our leaders and not really knowing what was going on until we were in over our heads. Yes, we are now forced not only to deal with it but, ACCEPT IT and attempt to elect leaders who now are willing to pass laws that able us to be more competitive in the way of education instead of all the political ideology that we have been victim of that have hurt the citizens of this country because our politicians went global without its citizens knowledge or our citizens being prepared. This was the responsibility of government, and they failed in their duty to include the citizens in on what was happening and the need to get serious about preparation. It was all orchestrated over a period of time knowing that this country was not prepared for such globalization and knowing that it would be devastating to our society.”

I don’t think it should be a surprise to anyone that our economy has opened up over time. We’ve been heading that way for 80 years after we saw how isolating our country’s economy helped lead to the Great Depression. Our leaders should do a better job communicating about globalization–I agree with that. For example, it’s ridiculous for someone like Mitt Romney, who knows better, to go to Michigan and promise that if they vote for him he’ll bring back all the manufacturing jobs that were lost there. That’s a lie that helps no one besides him. Even Obama knows he isn’t bringing those jobs back.

Still, it’s hard for a politician to prepare us for big changes like globalization. People don’t like to be told what they should do. It’s in our nature to be reactive and not proactive to big shifts in the economy. This affects companies, too–look at Kodak. That doesn’t mean we have the ability to stick our head in the sand and keep the status quo; all that does is leave us behind everyone else who adjusts (like the digital camera makers did to Kodak).

“Yes there is pain, lots of it for citizens. Please explain what benefits and great gains you are speaking about that our citizens are all gaining from globalization? Why are you not speaking about the pain that have not even begun because our government went head first into globalization without its citizens being prepared to compete. They were just plain stupid because they did not care and was stupidly consumed with self-interests, not the interests of the citizens and society.”

The benefits are obvious. You enjoy them everyday. First, everything available in the market becomes cheaper when competition exists (outside of select markets such as monopolies). Secondly, we don’t have everything we need as a nation–we don’t have the natural resources to live the way we do. Globalization/Trade is the only way we can acquire the resources we need. Third, we are able to import technological advancements from around the world in exchange for our technology. Without trade and globalization, the steam engine never gets out of England. It’s not like that has changed today–innovation that occurs in Japan, Europe, etc. comes here and improves our lives. We don’t have the opportunity to receive this innovation when we close our market.

We’ve all benefitted immensely from these three factors.

“Paul, you state:

< We get to benefit when a Japanese company makes a car that uses less oil.

This is the craziest thing that I have ever heard. Shouldn’t we be benefiting from a American developed product that uses less oil? Why isn’t our government and corporations interested in the little talent that we do have in this country. There are presently college kids successfully experimenting with converting automobiles into ones that use very little gasoline and it works! The talent in this area goes ignored, would you care to expound on why? Could it be because there was and is no real interest in developing automobiles to use less gasoline? I think so, all evidence points to just this.”

You misread my point. I referred to the future, not the past here. It’s a hypothetical. Besides, have you looked at auto sales lately? No one wants an SUV or a truck. We want fuel efficient vehicles now.

Our government and companies have invested billions here in energy efficient technology for autos and other energy hogging equipment. Do you think the more energy efficient light bulbs came about out of thin air? Our companies are simply going where the best bang for their buck is. Much of that is here in the US. Why do you think Pfizer is a major employer in St. Louis? They know we have the talent here to help them advance as a global company, and they’ve invested accordingly.

Your comment has this fundamental idea that everything can happen at the same cost anywhere in the world. That’s just not true. We shouldn’t be allocating our people and our resources to do things that others can do more efficiently than us. That makes our economy smaller and our people poorer in comparison to what we can be. It makes us wait longer for technological innovation that we need to stay competitive.

“< The difference is that our work products add more value than theirs do. < That’s how we’re able to afford all of this.

What work products of the U.S. are you speaking about that add more value? And who are theirs?”

Every single thing we sell in a competitive economy like ours adds more value than other countries’ work. If we sell it, it has to have more value to the consumer than every other available substitute does–the consumer would not buy it. I’m referring to both goods and services.

“< It’s not an easy world for the blue- collar worker–I recognize that.
< Think about what we offer as a society in terms of education, benefits, < infrastructure, etc. That all has a cost. Places like China cannot
< afford to have the things that we have.

When I think in terms of what the U.S. offer in terms of education compared to the foreigner’s countries who are being handed all the high tech jobs through the HB1 visas, (NAFTA), it shows a bleak picture for U.S. citizens not the picture that you are envisioning. The sad truth, even Americas who are high tech qualified are being replaced by foreigners because of cheaper labor instead of offering the American less pay. American’s high-tech qualified are being forced into temporary contract jobs offering no benefits. Benefits are being lost to Americans daily at frightening rates. Infrastructure, you are speaking about as if we are okay in that area? Our infrastructure is in desperate need of repair. It is in frightening condition”

You are aware that we have a shortage of people who can actually do hi-tech work in this country, right? All we’re doing is shooting ourselves in the foot by NOT having more H1-B visas (which typically cover white collar jobs requiring at least a bachelor’s degree). If Microsoft can’t do the work here because they can’t physically find people who have the education to do the job, they’ll do it overseas and pay the taxes there. Those are high paying jobs that inject much money into our economy. Besides, the H1-B allows us to steal the cream of the crop from other nations–we’re taking their engineers and their scientists and keeping the profits from their work here. How is that a bad deal in a country where unemployment for people with a 4-year degree is 2%? We desperately need more people with degrees, not less.

“Paul, you state:

< It’s much easier to add that value by taking advantage of our education
< system and providing a service. It’s a fact of life. As our standard of < living increases, we have to shift more and more away from manual labor < in order to continue to differentiate ourselves from countries with
< labor but without the intellectual capital.

Are you saying that a service industry is more valuable than having and production industry? Taking advantage of our education system in what way, advertising, business, degrees, all those interests of study that are non-technical? This is what it sounds like you are stating, and if it is I question your common sense, and you are too text-book orientated on many of your other thoughts.”

I’m saying that the largest potential for US gain comes from areas where we can have the largest competitive advantage over our competition. It’s easier to have an intellectual capital edge and not a labor edge in a world where everyone has two hands but not everyone has our education. That is as obvious a conclusion as any in the world. Our manufacturing edge on things like Boeing plans or Intel chips comes from our ability to use our intellectual capital to make specialized products and not low-technology, mass produced wares like underwear or toys.

D–what do you think leads to the biggest advances in the world? Ideas. The most non-technical thing there is. Ideas give us better products. What leads to Americans having these ideas? The way our education system develops people and how our free market allows them to try to turn their idea into a product that benefits us all. The developed world is not labor-driven anymore; it is driven by intellectual capital. We cannot have our standard of living without relying on them.

D. Walker–You are aware that the Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank that supports globalization, right? If you want to quote one of their policies, you’d better read the rest of them before espousing them.

Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can’t figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I’ll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents. The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated. In the last seven deals that I’ve been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.

Gordon Gekko

For anyone that wants a way to show their solidarity against this buyout: https://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/keep-bud-american a campaign that shows we will not support the InBev company.

Paul,

Maybe you have missed my over-all point. The point is that I don’t think we should have ever gone to where we find ourselves today to the extent that we have to be a global economy. But, we find ourselves in this position toady in the U.S because our political leaders were traitors to the American people and today we are forced to accept it and must accept it, we have no choice now, our politicians allowed this to take place under our noses distracting us from it concentrating on foolish things such as equal rights amendment and other issues that did not anmount to anything.

Yes Americans are forced to accept this globalization and they must accept the fact that that America do not belong to America anymore. I think that Americans should understand and realize how this happened. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.

headcheese,

Am a threat?

And you prove yourself to be a FOOl for making such a statement without explaining yourself.

D. Walker–if we hadn’t gotten to where we are today, we would have a smaller economy and a lower standard of living.

Looks like Kansas City’s own Boulevard beer is now the biggest U.S. based brewery in Missouri!

The “Welcome to St. Louis” sign is next. I was born and raised in St. Louis, but thank god my family and I no longer live in such a closed minded and segregated town. Until the people of St. Louis stop living in the past this will continue to happen to their beloved icons. Next is the Rams followed by charging you $20 bucks to visit the St. Louis Zoo. It’s a damn shame!!

I just lost my best freind mr bud light good bye my friend we had alot of great moments together I hope your new journey is a great 1!!!!!! there is no more american left in america

see ya my brother

d.walker; my,my,my i may be a fool, but you are still a treat. you put me to sleep.

This just all makes me sick to my stomach. Brito and his cronies will disassemble AB piece by piece until there’s nothing left here. First the theme parks, then the unions….this is a very sad day for us all. I’m a liberal…always have been…but when will we open our eyes and see that unless we start standing up for America we are doomed to become something else; Arab, Chinese, but not American. I hope the freaks that only thought about lining their own pockets choke on the money they’re going to make from the sweat of honest hardworking St. Louisians. RIP AB.

Paul you state:

< The benefits are obvious. You enjoy them everyday. First, everything
< available in the market becomes cheaper when competition exists (outside < of select markets such as monopolies).

Paul, it is hard to see how things are cheaper, in fact, they are not and incomes have not kept up with inflation. Are automobiles cheaper? Is food cheaper? Have any of the things that are necessary for us to have kept up with incomes? No!

Paul you state:

< Our government and companies have invested billions here in energy
< efficient technology for autos and other energy hogging equipment. Do
< you think the more energy efficient light bulbs came about out of thin
< air? Our companies are simply going where the best bang for their buck
< is. Much of that is here in the US. Why do you think Pfizer is a major
< employer in St. Louis? They know we have the talent here to help them
< advance as a global company, and they’ve invested accordingly.

Paul, that is fundamentally untrue. It is money wasted and only placed into certain ones pockets because we do not have energy efficient technology that is worth a heel of beans. Light bubs are all we can show for all these billions in grants given? Our government and corporations are famous for putting an end to technology that brilliant minds have developed that would actually be of great benefit to our citizens and society in favor of feeding the pockets of big corporation. As far as
Pfizer goes, you can bet your rear that that will being taking advantage of the HB1 vias also.

Paul you state:

< Your comment has this fundamental idea that everything can happen at the < same cost anywhere in the world. That’s just not true. We shouldn’t be
< allocating our people and our resources to do things that others can do < more efficiently than us. That makes our economy smaller and our people < poorer in comparison to what we can be. It makes us wait longer for
< technological innovation that we need to stay competitive.

No I have not stated this. I realize all too well that things can be made cheaper outside the U.S. But, this fact only gave corporations the false belief and false security that shipping manufacturing out of the country would be good for their bottom line. They falsely believed that this would also make their products more attractive to export. This was not smart, nor the case of what actually happened. And, proof of this is the fact that one of the reasons also for the dollar’s dropp in value is that we are doing mostly importing and hardly any exporting of our products.

It has been disasterous for the U.S. because not only are we not exporting enough, but also because Americans do not have these jobs now, Americans will not be able to afford to buy these products. And these companies will go belly up as we are witnessing, with many more to come.

Americans will not be able to afford to buy many of these products soon and we will see many more companies going belly up. But, of course beer and alcohol sales will do well in a bad ecomony, it is cheap enough and more people drink in a bad economy, but big and larger purchases will not do well. That is why we are seeing automoble purchases suffer. How many can even afford to buy their new products, even if they offered gas efficient products? It will only get worst as these jobs are being lost. Greed has backfired and out-smarted our American corporate heads.

Paul, you state:

< You are aware that we have a shortage of people who can actually do hi-
< tech work in this country, right? All we’re doing is shooting ourselves < in the foot by NOT having more H1-B visas (which typically cover white
< collar jobs requiring at least a bachelor’s degree). If Microsoft can’t < do the work here because they can’t physically find people who have the < education to do the job, they’ll do it overseas and pay the taxes there. < Those are high paying jobs that inject much money into our economy.
< Besides, the H1-B allows us to steal the cream of the crop from other
< nations–we’re taking their engineers and their scientists and keeping
< the profits from their work here. How is that a bad deal in a country
< where unemployment for people with a 4-year degree is 2%? We desperately < need more people with degrees, not less.

Paul, what a bunch of propoganda and backwards thinking lacking of common sense! In many cases these with HB1 visas are taking jobs away from Americans who are highly skilled and trained!

Furthermore, our government should have been concentrating on educating and training our own citizens, not just importing workers on this HB1 visas. Training American citizens could have been accomplished easily by importing these highly educated and skilled foreigners into America to teach and train American citizens, not just concentrate on placing foreigners into these jobs in America, and in many instances replacing highly skilled Americans.

Our leaders have not been smart or competent concerning our economy or educating our citizens. They have been looking at things in a very temporary and immediate manner that is proving very harmful this country and economy. They were not thinking about the good of the American citizen, why? Greed does make one stupid, doesn’t it?

Again, how do you account for the highly technically trained American workers who are losing their jobs to foreigners here in the U.S. through the HB1 visas? Foreigners are not only coming to this country to fulfill high tech jobs because of the lack of skilled Americans, but they are also taking away jobs from Americans who are trained and competent to do the work that these foreigners are being hired to do on HB1 visas.

Paul, you State:

< I’m saying that the largest potential for US gain comes from areas
< where we can have the largest competitive advantage over our
< competition. It’s easier to have an intellectual capital edge and not a < labor edge in a world where everyone has two hands but not everyone has < our education. That is as obvious a conclusion as any in the world. Our < manufacturing edge on things like Boeing plans or Intel chips comes from < our ability to use our intellectual capital to make specialized products < and not low-technology, mass produced wares like underwear or toys.

Paul, now you are saying, not everyone has our education, as though we are so educated? Now you are flip flopping and stating that we are highly educated here in America? I wish I could say that we were highly educated, but we are not. It is a shame and something that must change here in America. Most of us are not highly educated or highly technically trained. And the ones who fit this bill are are being replaced with foreigners holding HB1 visas and are now only able to find temporary contract work with no benefits.

Paul, you state:

< what do you think leads to the biggest advances in the world? Ideas. The < most non-technical thing there is. Ideas give us better products. What
< leads to Americans having these ideas? The way our education system
< develops people and how our free market allows them to try to turn their < idea into a product that benefits us all. The developed world is not
< labor-driven anymore; it is driven by intellectual capital. We cannot
< have our standard of living without relying on them.

Paul, ideas are great and necessary, but so is manufacturing and productivity to a healthy society. A healthy society needs them all; history has shown us this fact over and over. Why are you ignoring this and foolishly thinking that a society can be a healthy one and survive being only a service industry?

Paul you state:

< D. Walker–if we hadn’t gotten to where we are today, we would have a
< smaller economy and a lower standard of living.

Paul, this is where I think you must be in Vice President Chaney’s inner business circles or you are maybe crazy and just love to hear yourself speak. You are talking non-sense in thinking that everything with our economy is hunky dory and that our standard of living is better and getting better. In fact, just today, I heard President Bush state that we have a good economy. Who are you, to be able to say state such obviously silly things? Maybe like Bush, through your distorted visions, these things you say are true.

Congratsiulations your command is printed in a newspaper in that tiniest most insignificant countrie.

Hard to believe a brewery in one of the tiniest most insignificant countries in Europe was able to buy the King of Beers. Belgium, are you freaking serious? Can you even fly to there direct from the US? Hey at least it wasn’t Luxembourg I guess. Can’t wait to see the Bud beer truck being pulled by a Fiat and a poodle on top. Can I adopt a Clydesdale before they go the glue factory?

TWA had Icahn, Bud’s got Brito. The devil can have them both.

Good or bad deal?! Lew, are you an idiot ? There is nothing that come out of this that is positive. Shareholders–take your money, pay your taxes, and then try to find something else to invest in. AB stock at least has stayed stable over these last few years.Buffet now can give all his extra cash from the sale to the Gates Foudation which in turn is giving it all to Africa, while thousands are being cut from their jobs here. And thank you Carlos for wanting to bring Bud to the Ukraine and Peru.The next time I am in those vacation hot spots, I “ll ask for a cold frosty BUD.
The whole transaction makes me sick.
John

This is like watching a car wreck; it really is sad, but you can’t stop watching. St. Louis is screwed. This is just one more in a long series of tragic events. You’ll go on, but without much importance.
Want to fix it? Start with the absurd division between city and county. Waht a sham. 20 or so well-paid aldermen for the 300K citizens of the city. 5 counsilmen for the million county residents. This is not sustainable. Your rotting from the inside out.

Let’s hope this works out better than the Daimler-Chrysler deal. Going back 10 years, then CEO of Daimler Jurgen Schrempp said all of the things Carlos Brito is saying, global expansion, synergistic opportunities, speaking of the new, formidable world-wide company. After nine years of intensive cost-cutting and stripping an American brand of it’s identity, they dumped it off to the highest bidder at a fraction of what was originally paid. I hope the A-B Imbev deal works out better.

“< The benefits are obvious. You enjoy them everyday. First, everything
< available in the market becomes cheaper when competition exists (outside < of select markets such as monopolies).

Paul, it is hard to see how things are cheaper, in fact, they are not and incomes have not kept up with inflation. Are automobiles cheaper? Is food cheaper? Have any of the things that are necessary for us to have kept up with incomes? No!”

Your answer is meaningless because we manage our economy in a way designed to promote moderate annual inflation. Things become cheaper in real terms over time, not in actual dollars.

What would they cost without globalization? That’s the question we really should be answering. Gas, for instance, would certainly not be cheaper without trade–we simply wouldn’t have enough of it. As for food, that’s a tougher nut to crack. Food inflation is a new phenomenon–food prices fell by 75% from 1974 to 2005 (in real economic terms). Globalization lowered the price of food by spreading better technology around the world, such as machinery, seeds, irrigation techniques, and fertilizer. Food prices are shooting up now for a few reasons now, most notably our quest to turn food into energy and the increased demand in foreign nations for meat. They still are much lower on a real basis than they were a generation ago.

“Paul you state:

< Our government and companies have invested billions here in energy
< efficient technology for autos and other energy hogging equipment. Do
< you think the more energy efficient light bulbs came about out of thin
< air? Our companies are simply going where the best bang for their buck
< is. Much of that is here in the US. Why do you think Pfizer is a major
< employer in St. Louis? They know we have the talent here to help them
< advance as a global company, and they’ve invested accordingly.

Paul, that is fundamentally untrue. It is money wasted and only placed into certain ones pockets because we do not have energy efficient technology that is worth a heel of beans. Light bubs are all we can show for all these billions in grants given? Our government and corporations are famous for putting an end to technology that brilliant minds have developed that would actually be of great benefit to our citizens and society in favor of feeding the pockets of big corporation. As far as
Pfizer goes, you can bet your rear that that will being taking advantage of the HB1 vias also.”

I’m not arguing the subsidies aren’t efficient. Your initial comment suggested we don’t invest in technology here, which is untrue. I hope Pfizer is bringing people here on H1-B visas. I want those jobs and that money going to our local economy. It’s not like there are a surplus of scientists in St. Louis–Monsanto, et al would love to have more of them around. How many unemployed chemists do you know?

People who can do technical work at a Pfizer or a Monsanto have full employment no matter what the economy is like. The skills they possess are in such high demand.

“Greed has backfired and out-smarted our American corporate heads.”

I don’t think so. I think we’re in an economic cycle. It happens. Our CEOs aren’t performing poorly relative to the rest of the world–our companies are still world leaders in a variety of industries. Some of them certainly outsmart themselves–look at the banks. But that isn’t only an American problem…look at the shares of the major European banks.

“Paul, what a bunch of propoganda and backwards thinking lacking of common sense! In many cases these with HB1 visas are taking jobs away from Americans who are highly skilled and trained!”

No, they’re not.

Companies only apply for these visas because they really want the candidates. I work for a company that applies for them on a regular basis in an industry with full employment–we can’t find enough U.S. trained people to do what we do. It’s not because the training is poor–it’s because not enough Americans choose my profession. This is a relatively common phenomenon in many math and science-based fields. Literally, the difference between someone getting hired and doing that extra work is whether or not we can find qualified people. We’d love to hire Americans–we’re not turning any qualified people away!

If you can convince more 12 year olds to be engineers, economists, computer programmers, and actuaries then we won’t need an H1-B visa program. Until then, we will continue to need these workers.

“Furthermore, our government should have been concentrating on educating and training our own citizens, not just importing workers on this HB1 visas.”

Last time I checked, our education system is competitive–especially our universities, which are the best in the world.

“Training American citizens could have been accomplished easily by importing these highly educated and skilled foreigners into America to teach and train American citizens, not just concentrate on placing foreigners into these jobs in America, and in many instances replacing highly skilled Americans.”

Have you been to any university lately? Many departments are filled with foreign Ph.D’s, especially those related to the sciences. We’re already doing that. Universities have an exemption of 20,000 jobs for persons with advanced degrees that don’t count against the H1-B visa cap for that reason.

“Paul, now you are saying, not everyone has our education, as though we are so educated? Now you are flip flopping and stating that we are highly educated here in America? I wish I could say that we were highly educated, but we are not. It is a shame and something that must change here in America. Most of us are not highly educated or highly technically trained. And the ones who fit this bill are are being replaced with foreigners holding HB1 visas and are now only able to find temporary contract work with no benefits.”

I’m not flipflopping. My point is consistent–our education system gives us a competitive advantage over third world countries that less skilled labor cannot provide. Our higher education system is widely considered to be the best in the world. We need to do a little work in grades K-12, but we have a competitive education system.

I’m now convinced you don’t even know what an H1-B visa really is; you just heard it involved immigration and assumed it is bad. Basically everyone who receives an H1-B visa has a college degree. Care to guess what unemployment among Americans with a similar college degree is? 2%. College graduates are at full employment. Our college graduates aren’t doing temp work because of H1-B visas; that’s a blatantly ridiculous idea. They are the people affected by the H1-B process, and it doesn’t seem to be killing them.

In any case, we issue all of 65,000 H1-B visas a year. That’s rounding error when it comes to determining unemployment. It’s not producing any meaningful impact on the economy.

DS–Considering the plight of GM and Ford, it’s hard to just blame Daimler for Chrysler’s struggles.

Beer from whatever company…AB MillerCoors et al…are about the only goods that are still American made from the labor to the ingredents to the sales people.

I just keep thinking - I sure wouldn’t want to be the current Busch’s when they meet their elders at the pearly gates and have to explain this move. Don’t think they’d like it a bit!

I think Missouri is a great place to live.Where else are you going to find a good education,small neighborhoods in which to raise your children,lots of “kids on the block”? great restaurants,Muny.

You know if you don’t think it’s going to go your way 100% then Leave!Of course I don’t mean the city.They are leaded with problems.

I’m siding with Paul on the education side here from college. I push my daughter……..”math, math, math, math”; “science, science, science, science”. I have a sister with a major in bio-chemistry and a minor in chemistry, another sister that is in the medical field dealing with imagining. Math and science is what will propel you forward in this economy along with any other field in any other country. This is why you see so many individuals coming to our country for their college education. Case in point: Carlos Brito, graduate of Stanford. As for me, I went straight to work from HS and am now in college going for that degree that I wish I had gotten years ago. Better late than never

Lisa, where are you?

SouthernBelleVA,

I don’t recall anyone disagreeing with Paul on the education. Yes we have great medical schools, and science programs and business schools, etc.

But foreigners come here to go to school as part of their over-all education, which includes living and working abroad and among other cultures. The U.S. is not the only place these foreigners choose to live and go to school.

We are really a narcissistic to think that our schools are any better than other countries. Going to school abroad understanding other culture first-hand is as much a part of a foreigners education as being highly skillfully trained.

D. Walker

D;

I didn’t say ours was the best, just that a lot of people do come here from other countries to get their education. It doesn’t happen as much now as it did in the past when Brito attended college, but it does happen quite often. And I am aware of the kids that come here on work visas as park of their extended education as we employee about 500 each year on an international program our company started about 8 years ago. In some cases, sad to say, these kids are harder working than those from the U.S. We employee kids from about any country you can name (no, I don’t mean EVERY country, but many).

Thanks for your input

Oppss, make that “part”, not “park”, lol

To Rick Martin-
The Molon Coors Company is more than 50% controlled by the Molson Family and Shareholders making it technically foreign owned and controlled.

SABMiller is foreign owned and traded on the London exchange….

AB now owned by InBev

Largest American owned Brewery is D.G. Yuengling out of Pottsville PA and regionally distributed on the East coast. It is also family owned and America’s Oldest Brewery, operating since 1829.

Support American owned Companies when and where you can….. Sam Adams, Pabst or Boulevard!!!

Paul, these HB1 university professors are not brought here for the specific purpose of trianing Americans to be highly skilled. These ones you speak about are brought here and they follow the program set in place here.

I was thinking more in terms of hands-on training, more technical training.

Also, too many of us know first hand that high tech workers are being replaced by foreigners with HB1 visas. This is a problem. Who are you, spinning these falsities?

Paul, let’s just agree to disagree. Leaders with your thinking and corporate heads who have brain washed employees to think as you do are the reason America finds itself where we are at.

I bet you think that the economy is not going to fall also.

What is America? America began as the land of opportunity, a land which fought to become a free country where people from all over the globe could find prosperity. If this is a true statement, then what has changed?

Look at this with open eyes, both names of the company’s founders, “Anheuser-Busch” orginate from Europe!

I think that we as Americans should take a good hard look at our historic roots and wake up to the actual concept upon which our fathers fought for, and died for, “we the decendents” need to keep the guard and hold a vigilant candle focused on where our fore-fathers actually stood when our GREAT country was founded.

Those who of you who think that globalization has been great for this country and that everything is just fine with our economy should vote for John McCain because these are the things that his top advisors state, they are in step and marching to the same beat as President Bush:

They think:

“We have sort of become a nation of whiners”.

“What you’re experiencing is just a “mental recession.”

Worried about losing your house to foreclosure? Can’t pay bills on time—or at all? Lost a job or can’t find another one that actually pays a wage you and your family can live on? That’s right. The mortgage nightmares, credit card debt, jobs without health care or retirement security, the college education you can’t afford for your kids—it’s all a state of mind.

As reported in the attached report:

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/07/10/mccain-adviser-stop-whining-the-recession-is-all-in-your-mind/

Voting for McCain is nothing more than voting in the Bush regime.

John McCain revealed to working class families and the blue-collar worker.

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/mccain.cfm?source=mccainrevealed

Hi,
Living in Belgium and working direct with Inbev (Leuven) I can assure you, all things the unions and local villages(were a stack is)are afraid for is a fact. Breweries will get closed, jobs transferred to low wage countries and so on.
They make a lot of money with the old structure of Interbrew, But the Brazilian Ambev way of working, is even more profitable. Squeeze you’re employees to the max, no connections with the local cultural life.

DaX

Sad to see another piece of the USA sold off. Maybe we should just put a big FOR SALE sign on Washington.

Here’s a question: Several years ago wasn’t there a battle over weather or not Anheuser-Busch could add the American Eagle to thier logo? One that that had Anheuser-Busch proving thier american ownership before being allowed to incorporate the Eagle in thier logo?

So is IN-BEV going to be allowed to retain use of the American Eagle in the logo? Is more than a business being sold here…is the Icon of American freedom also being sold? Does IN-BEV now own the Great American Eagle logo TOO?!?!?!

Initially, “The Powers The Be” led us to believe this was a bad deal for AB, for St Louis, even for America. I fail to see how any of this changes just because the selling price is now $70 per share instead of $65.

well, well, well. AB had a deal with Modelo and hesitated because they didn’t know if they could afford it and didn’t know if it would stop InBev. just another case of not being able to pull the trigger by this inept management. did they ever hear of at least trying. worse thing that could have happened is what happened. don’t blame brito or InBev. Looks like the CHICKENS were roosting right here in our own hen house.

Why was it not a merger rather than a buy out? Combine the two companies as it now. If you have $100 worth of A-B stock you get $100 worth of new company stock. If you have $100 worth of In-Bev stock you get $100 worth of new company stock. You have a one company now owned by the previous shoreholders without a 50 Billion Dollar Debt. I guess it came down to who could pee the furthest.

Waldo, nope I think they are just fine, but with mounting lawsuits (greed)
expensive debt for Modelo, makes for the greedy stockholders(big players) to bring on more lawsuits and the everyday stockholders jumping on the bandwagon of SELL, SELL, SELL !!! Damned if you do damned if you don’t.
Stockholders, lawsuits, hedgefunds, credit problems did not help AB.

Suzyjax, this isn’t going to be good, but a corporate raid/hostile takeover (”friendly” is laughable) leaves nothing to say but “its all going to be good,great, wonderful.

Brito mentioned yesterday that the Blue Ocean project seems to take care of a lot of things and “When you look from the outside, you don’t know everything that an insider would know,” they saw the plan had not been slapped together at the last minute or imposed from the top down without details.
I have said all along he knows nothing about this company. His ego has led him to believe that AB needed to be saved from themselves and AB has done nothing to trim expenses, re-tool, continute to evaluate and all the while try to make employees happy/do what is right.

He wanted his steak and lobster dinner PLUS the ice cream with the cherry on top. Now he has to chew, swallow and not choke. Yes there are always ways to make things better, but if this proves to be too much for him to handle, the brand, the company and MOST of all the employees will pay.
He is known to confuse fat with flesh.

He better come out and come out quick with his “grand dream” of how this is going to work because he has a company with people all over the U.S with an extreme case of the jitters, stockholders that are nervous, and a lot of people who may not want to invest in his new company.

My take on the merge vs. takeover…..Brito answers to nobody.

St. Louis just got exactly what cities in other countries have been for years, GANKED! US countries have for decades if not centuries have been devouring companies outside the US. AB was ready to do it to Group Medelo. Buying the rest, and getting rid of employee’s. Its a shame this has happened but its chickens coming home to roost.

ABIV could care less about the company, he and the board just waited until the price was right. Notice how quickly the tune changed when Inbev raised the offer and threatened to get rid of the existing board.

The Ugly American at his best. Would sell his own soul just for some more money.

what annoys me is that AB IV keeps saying his responsibility is to the “shareholders.” i understand that on an intellectual level, but shouldn’t his responsibility, as CEO of the company, be to the over thousands of AB employees around the country (and the world, for that matter)?

a small group of shareholders walks away with a ridiculous amount of money, and the people who made AB perhaps the greatest american corporation ever are left in the lurch.

D. Walker–I’m telling you the reality I deal with on a daily basis in a job where I hire people with H1-B visas. I don’t have enough qualified Americans who have the education or work experience. There really isn’t such a thing as an unemployed American in my industry–if you have a pulse and a clean criminal record, someone will hire you. It is an industry-wide problem common to many math and science based occupations.

jim–Management may have wanted to do the Modelo deal. You’re speculating that they are the ones who had control over this situation. The shareholders dictated the outcome here, not the Busch family. They told them to get a deal done. It didn’t matter to them if Modelo was available or not.

A-B should not have tried a merger of equals. Their shareholders would have lost the buyout premium in that case. It’s not a very good idea to turn $70 of cash into $50 of a new stock. Big investors weren’t going to do that. Once a buyout offer is made, the merger of equals option is usually off the table–shareholders aren’t idiots; they aren’t going to turn down money and still give away control of their company.

Doug–CEOs serve at the leisure of the owners of a company. A-B’s shareholders are ABIV’s boss. Auggie had to do what they told him to do, or he wouldn’t have been the CEO anymore–with or without a sale.

I have question that You have to think about .
When an American buy’s a French winery in France will the American make French wine there or American wine ?

In my perception the wine the American makes is French am I right or wrong ?

So if a Belgian brewery multinational buy’s a American brewery the beer stay’s American (Bud , Bud-light…..) so Budweiser still will be an American Brand made by Americans for Americans and other nationalities on this planet.

You can not buy or sell a herritage or history .
Who knows whitin a few Years the whole Anheuser-Busch Inbev group can be may be back in American ownership .This is the price of (world market) freedom where You Americans fight for.

Budweiser is an American Brand and one of the BEST lager beers in the whole world You should be proud to make such a beer .
BUD is KING of beers (even after the take over).

Sincerly Yours
A Belgian that likes the USA very much , drinks BUD and do not like Stella or Becks.( I and hate Inbev because they rices prices of beer here in Belgium)

Tell you what if it is a company who is looking for highly skilled computer programmers, IT, computer engineers, post your company here because I personally know many who can only find work with contractors who do not offer benefits.

I know many of these workers who are replaced by foreigners with HB1 visas.

People like yourself, Microsoft, and Illinois Bell are full of crap with you say you cannot find qualified workers. I know qualified people who apply for these jobs and never hear back.

What type of workers are you looking for? I can find your qualified workers.

What a load of garbage. Many of these jobs such as telemarking etc..and telephone sales that HB1 workers are now filling, a freakin monkey could be trained to do the work.

Furthermore Paul,

This is the same kind of propaganda that the unions used, but their was, we can’t find Blacks to pass the entry test. Garbage!!!

Soon, just like the union construction industry, companies like yours with all your lame excuses and unwillingness to do right by people here, you will fall too.

It was done first to Blacks, now look White America, it is being done to you. It is wrong and coming from the wrong heart set. I just hope people will learn and see.

I challenge Paul to state what kind of job openings that his company have that he can’t find qualified workers for. Think of it as free advertising for your company Paul.

Should have wrote:

This is the same kind of propaganda that the unions used, but there’s were, “we can’t find Blacks to pass the entry test”. Garbage!!!

DW, I was a hotel manager for quite a few years and could not find enough people to clean rooms. I had mostly Bosnians and Hispanics with green cards cleaning the rooms. Prior to the hotel industry, I managed restaurants and can’t tell you the number of times I washed dishes because the black or white dishwasher quit.

After the hotel industry, I worked in retail and can’t tell you the number of managers who had to work extra shifts because they could not find qualified people to work the floor positions.

One final note, as I have mentioned in previous comments, my wife works for Anheuser-Busch and there seems to be a wide variety of ethnicities in her department, including Black and Asian.

Logic,

Paul spoke of not being able to find qualified workers. It doesn’t take any kind of qualifications or a brain to clean hotel rooms Logic.

Still waiting Paul.

Logic out of curosity, how much do workers earn on average hourly to clean hotel rooms? Also, do hotels offer these employees benefits?

D. Walker–I am going to decline to say what I do, other than that the government reqiuires certain standards to be met in order to do what I do. There are not enough Americans who meet those standards. It’s literally a red line–either you have them, or you don’t. I can only train so many people; I need people who can sign for things and take responsibility right now. That is true all over my industry.

I’ll give you another example discussed ad nauseum–nuclear engineers. We don’t graduate enough of them from our colleges. Nuclear power plant operators all over America would give their left arm to find more Americans with college degrees in nuclear engineering. This is similar to my industry–we need people who are already qualified.

This is quite common in many math and science based fields. My friends who are chemists have the same problem.

I’m not in the computing industry. I am aware it does not have shortages of workers.

I’m glad you think my failure to find Americans who have the qualifications OUR GOVERNMENT REQUIRES THEM TO HAVE equates to racism. This is not some vast conspiracy–it’s a reality. Jobs requiring a very technical education see the same shortages across the U.S. It’s not like people magically appear with technical skills that are learned at a 4-year university.

To Paul who said

“what annoys me is that AB IV keeps saying his responsibility is to the “shareholders.” ”

Actually, corporations are LEGALLY REQUIRED to act in the best interest of shareholders, not employees or anyone else. Yes, that sucks.

So, you see, the Busch family sold out long ago when they took the company public.

Ken–That was Doug, not me. I made the same point that you did.

Paul,

My point was concerning those who are qualified who are being replaced by HB1 workers, one example that I gave you was the IT field, which I am personally familiar with.

Now, if the government would invest in our own citizen in the way of training, as you yourself state, you can only train so many people. Use some of these HB1 visa workers to train American citizens is the whole point that I was making with you many posts ago.

It did not have to come to this state in America, as far as not having these unskilled workers that you speak about if people like yourself, corporations and government used or had common sense and truly cared about both the good of America and its citizens. The main problem is not having skilled workers, but having too many in corporations and government with no common sense, which is true wisdom.

Actually, Pabst is the largest American owned brewer, although they contract out their brewing (much like Sam Adams does.)

So it was funny a couple of years ago when AB ran ads lampooning Miller and Coors for not being true American beers.

It won’t be so funny when Pabst runs the same type of ads about AB.

In retrospect, I guess those AB ads were mean-spirited.

I am a stockholder.I am majorly against the sell of AB. What is going to happen to the beautiful Clydesdales? The amusement parks? Seaworld?

We just keep selling America off to foreign countries. Soon there will be NO America if we keep selling our companies off.

Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell , Pizza Hut, Long John Silvers are all owned by a Chinese company.

Buy American just seems to be getting smaller and smaller.

Next thing you know English will not be the language for this country.

We are going to destroy ourselves not by war but by selling America piece at a time. Too bad we think we have to sell to a foreign country.

Actually, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell , Pizza Hut, Long John Silvers are US owned, based in Louisville, Kentucky.

Lisa, know you have family working at ab, but you have been drinking the busch family kool-aid tooo long. They are better at selling a bill of goods than running a company.

kfc,taco bell, long john silvers are owned by YUM! Brands, a publicly traded company based in Loiusvile, ky. However if you eat that stuff,” who owns what” won’t matter as you will be pushing daisies due to clogged arteries.

D. Walker–No, the problem of shortages of qualified people for certain jobs is a natural result of letting people choose what they want to do. We make decisions at an individual level, not at a collective level.

The government and corporations can only do so much planning.

Are you saying that too many Americans have chosen the IT profession? If you are, you are truly mistaken, and have now convinced me that you are a spin-doctor working for the government trying to calm everyone down believing lies conspired by big corporate America who controls our government.

I have been a loyal Budweiser drinker for nearly forty years. I can absolutely PROMISE you that I will NEVER drink another one. And, YES, I really mean it. Furthermore, if you continue to call it an ‘American lager’, I would consider it a deceptive trade practice.

I’m not commenting on the IT profession. I’m commenting on mine.

I’m commenting on basic economics–people make choices based on their values and not on those of the government or of big corporations. That is the fundamental basis for all economic (and psychological) theories. It’s really one of the most obvious, intuitive theories that exists. People make their choices because they are the right ones for them to make based on their values and beliefs.

These individual choices sum up to our economy. Our actions (as people and as corporations) adjust to reflect these individual decisions.

Let’s take IT work. If people believe they should work in IT, they will do it. That is the supply curve. The market, however, only demands so many people to do IT work at a given cost. That’s the demand curve. If more people choose to do IT work, the supply curve goes up. Demand changes in one of two ways–either the cost goes down and the increase in supply is absorbed, or if the cost stays the same employers will demand fewer workers than they currently employ. The IT market has experienced a little of both as more Americans and foreign nationals do IT work.

The shortage of employees in my industry can only be solved in two ways: Either we all pay a heck of a lot more for what I do (not a very appealing option for people other than me) or we have to increase supply. There’s really to way to immediately increase the supply in America given the education required for my job–we can’t suddenly train people to do it tomorrow. The easiest and cheapest way to increase our supply is to bring in more qualified people right now. That’s the idea behind the H1-B visa.

I thought that I was talking to someone who lived in the real world. No you live in your small world and obviously do not take the time to learn what is going on in the real world as proven by this statement and all your other posts.

“I’m not commenting on the IT profession. I’m commenting on mine”.

Sorry to inform you, but the world consist of a great more than you.

Furthermore Paul,

You do not even have a good grasp of what is really going with your immediate world or the corp[oration or government entity that you work for.

We’ve just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I’m the one here hiring and firing people dealing with the reality of the labor market every day.

< I’m the one here hiring and firing people dealing with the reality of
< the labor market every day.

Just because one hires and fires people proves nothing about their wisdom or leadership. You could possibly be just a fool with power in the workplace today.

D. walker, why must you insist on calling everyone who does not agree with your senseless drivel fools.

Not everyone, but when one is saying the things that Paul says, it shows that he is a fool.

waldo:

In fact, I think you were reading my mind because I did not call him a fool, I said he could be…

Paul, D Walker, let’s play nice.

I must say, having a degree or 2 does not in protect one from layoffs, or poverty. Even if you’re a technical expert. Some earlier poster stated that a large pharmaceutical company with a small operation in the Lou isn’t there for the “talent”. They got into St. Louis on the flop, and they’ll leave in a heartbeat.

Say goodbye to Bud! I’m a former employee of Inbev. I worked at Rolling Rock brewery! Remember us? Inbev sold us to Anheuser, now they got it back.
When Inbev first took over Rolling Rock from Labatt, they held a company meeting. At this meeting, they put up a large map of the United States. Inbev laid claims that they ARE or going to be #1 all across the world except the US., and how they have plans on being #1 in the US.! Well, we thought this was great news for us, little did we know then. Now we all know how they are planning to become #1 in the US. And you can bet, beers like Sam Adams and Yuengling will be next in Inbev’s sights. They want it all. Just look back at what happened to some of their own historic breweries in Europe, Canada and us, Rolling Rock. They do NOT care about history or tradition or YOU! All they care about is $$$$$$$$. Inbev is, a bunch of pr**cks!! I know, I worked for them! I wish all you Bud employee’s good luck, I really do. Because s**t is about to hit the fan!

Former Rolling Rock employee
Latrobe Pa.