Anheuser-Busch InBev

It was reported that InBev and Anheuser-Busch have come to an agreement to sell AB for $70 / share. About a year ago, I was in Rio de Janeiro drinking in a bar with two friends – Gabe and Marcela. Gabe and I were staying with Marcela, who works for AmBev (the Brazil unit of InBev). She works on Pepsi, but we ran into a bunch of her coworkers who were sales reps for their beer brands, most notably Brahma. Latinos in general are really interested in gringos and were engaging me in conversation. But when they found out I worked for Anheuser-Busch for two years, they went crazy. They told me that AB was in Rio that weekend for talks about InBev buying them. I cried foul. It couldn’t be true.  I had no idea what the truth was, but it just couldn’t be. When I worked for AB, it was the biggest brewery in the world with the most iconic brand. There was no way AB would sell to InBev. I went so far as to proclaim that if AB sold to InBev, I would leave the States. I would move out of America for my career, which had not occurred to me at the time but I said it in all seriousness of someone who had been drinking in Brazil for a week. I looked it up on the Internet that night and learned that, in June 2007, they were in merger talks as opposed to buyout talks. Well, low and behold, things have changed and InBev out-maneuvered AB to put themselves in a position to buy the company outright. But my favorite part of this story is that I made good on my promise months before buyout rumors even started. How’s that for foresight?

Click here to read my blog post I wrote when InBev made the unsolicited offer

Click here for a timeline of the events in InBev’s acquisition of Anheuser-Busch