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American Brewer Sells-Out For $52 Billion

Published 07/14/08 Jeff Bennett - Print Article
E-mail - editor@economyincisis.org

Say goodbye to the historic 156-year-old American brewer Anheuser-Busch and prepare to witness a new Belgian owned company, to be named Anheuser-Busch InBev.

With this sale for an estimated $52 billion, U.S. manufacturing and production has lost its dominance in yet another industry. Americans may never regain the upper-hand in the distilling and wine market, which is now more than 64 percent foreign owned, as jobs and domestic revenue are threatened by InBev's brutal cost-cutting procedures.

Anheuser's Budweiser brand – with its patriotic name ‘The Great American Lager,’ and whose can dons the national colors of red, white and blue – demonstrates no American company is safe from foreign take-over.

Source Market Watch:

Anheuser-Busch Cos. recommended a $52 billion takeover bid by InBev, a deal that will create the world's largest beer maker and transfer ownership of the legendary U.S. company to the Belgian-Brazilian giant.

…

The offer is deeply unpopular in St. Louis, where Anheuser-Busch is one of the region's key employers, taxpayers and charitable givers -- and where InBev's reputation for ruthless cost-cutting in pursuit of ever-wider profit margins has made locals nervous..

…

Still, "they leech out every dollar," said Tom Pirko, president of consultancy Bevmark. "They will make Anheuser-Busch perform the way global companies do. That means no more goody-two-shoes attitude toward workers and distributors. Everyone is going to have cuts and bruises over this."

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