Anheuser-Busch Sold for $50 Billion

InBev, owner of Stella Artois, buys Anheuser-Busch, maker of Budweiser, for $50 billionAnheuser-Busch agreed to sell to Belgium’s InBev last night, demonstrating that all the howls about American pride were mere haggling over price.   All it took was raising the offer to $70 per share from $65 per share — “a 27 percent premium over Anheuser’s record-high stock price in October 2002” — and giving a Busch a seat on the board.

The combined company will be called Anheuser-Busch InBev, said the sources, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. Anheuser will get seats on the new company’s board, the sources said, but it was not immediately clear how many.

Adding another dimension to any deal was Mexico’s No. 1 brewer Grupo Modelo, which is 50 percent owned by Anheuser. The maker of Corona beer, which has the right to choose its partner, has not yet approved InBev for that role and the two brewers remain in talks, according to one person familiar with the situation.

One suspects that hurdle will prove minor; the combined company would easily be the world’s top beer distributor and it would be foolish, indeed, for Modelo to opt out of access to that network.  What remains to be seen is whether Missouri politicians or anti-trust forces try to stop this deal.

Previously: Anheuser-Busch $46 Billion Belgian Buyout Bid

Related: No Beer, No Civilization, Beer vs. Wine Vote

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. markm says:

    …is nothing sacred?…next they’ll change the Clydesdale horses to Lipizzaner stallions….GAHH!.

  2. John Burgess says:

    It can only be for the best. At the very worst, nothing will change and AB products will continue to suck. With any luck, I mean any luck, the products will improve.

    Even a margin improvement would be welcomed.

  3. Mike Licht says:

    The Belgians are coming! The Belgians are coming!

    Hide the Clydesdales!

  4. Dantheman says:

    If they hide the Clydesdales, where will they get the critical liquid ingredient to make Bud taste the way it does?