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.