InBev: Now Your Just Kidding Us Right?

From CNNMoney:

MILWAUKEE (AP) — August Busch IV, chief executive of Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. will be paid nearly $10.4 million after the brewer is sold to InBev SA and $120,000 a month to consult for the new company through the end of 2013.

Terms of the consulting deal are currently being negotiated, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission made Friday.

Busch, a member of the St. Louis-based brewer’s founding family, will also be eligible for an additional payment of $13.3 million on various change-in-control payments and benefits, the filing said.

Last month, the brewer of Bud Light and Budweiser announced it had agreed to be sold to InBev, the Belgium-based maker of Stella Artois, Beck’s and Bass. The deal is worth $52 billion.

I understand August Busch IV taking the money. What I don’t understand is why InBev would pay the CEO of an under performing company $10.4 million as a consultant.

Get this….

This putz is going to stay on and “advise the company on new products and business opportunities, review marketing programs, and meet with retailers, wholesalers and advertisers as part of his new duties.”

Here is my question…

WTF were you supposed to be doing when you were the CEO? Your new career sounds exactly like the effing job description of a CEO running an international beverage company. But who the hell am I to judge.

Mr. Brito, you over paid. You over paid for the company as a whole, but you had to in order to get the deal done. What you didn’t have to do is over-pay this stiff. You really could have gotten away with a lot less. But, you have your own shareholders that you are responsible to and there will be a day of reckoning for you too.

In the meantime, I recommend to all shareholders that you reject the deal. If for no other reason than you will get $1.25 billion if the deal falls through, which is better than what Auggie was returning. It’s a shame, there is an entire field of Busch’s rolling over in their graves.

InBev Bolting on Buds Workers

Well that didn’t take long. I wonder if Carlos Brito had his fingers crossed when he told everyone that he wasn’t going to change anything after InBev completed its merger with Anheuser-Busch. Missed the headline? Here goes;

Budweiser to reduce salaried work force by 10 to 15 per cent

So they call them buyouts huh?  It’s a salary swap if ever there was one. Offer your older (more expensive) employees a buyout and replace them with a fresh (cheaper) crop of 18 year olds that just graduated. Only employees 55 years old or older as of December 31, 2008 are eligible.

The group totals about 360 people who have spent their lives making and packing, shipping and selling Budweiser. You know, the American beer. The King of Beers reports the extermination could cost up to $500 million over the next two quarters with $2.7 million going to CFO W. Randolph Baker. You didn’t think InBev was going to keep Busch’s money man did you?

Anheuser Busch Inbev - Nothing Left But the Drinking

Congratulations Mr. Brito. Over the last few weeks I spanked you pretty good here and here, and here over this deal, and as of last week I gave you no shot at getting it done. BUT, that was before I knew the boys over at Bud were going to come crawling to you. I don’t know how you did it, but good for you. Now don’t eff it up!

Inbev Makes Bad Bet on Bud

Inbev’s hostile bid for Anheuser-Busch got nastier yesterday. Inbev moved to replace the beer maker’s board of directors….and there goes the deal. What the hell is wrong with Inbev? This was going to be a precarious deal to get done in the first place, now you take a shot directly into the heart of America by filing preliminary consent solicitation with the SEC.

WRONG MOVE!

Well Mr. Brito, it was nice knowing you, but you just shot this deal in the head. There is no way you are going to get what you want now. Haven’t any of your people been keeping up on American news? There is a huge anti-foreign ownership sentiment going on for the last few years. From ports to football teams to defense companies, Americans have been vary aware of who owns their properties…since it isn’t them!

You already had some politicians lining up against you during a Presidential election year mind you! But I appreciate your attempt, I appreciate your spin doctors lining up your proposed slate as the who’s who of American business. You would have been better off letting this thing fester inside the Busch Family. It would have taken longer, but getting the right people on your side would have made this much smoother. But, I guess you opted for a quick kill vs. laying in wait for your prey, now you will have none.

You might be able to pick of Coors, but your going to have to attack Canada for that one..eh!

Bye Bye Budweiser? InBev Bids For Bud

It all started in the 80’s and early 90’s, then continued in the early part of this century. What is it I am talking about race fans? The wholesale selling out of American classics from right under neath our noses. The 80’s saw some of the most fabled real estate come under Japanese ownership. Then it was the gutting of American manufacturing to China and the outsourcing of anything that had to do with customer service to India.

But at some point, you have to take a stand, and dammit, there is no better time then now with InBev’s $65 unsolicited bid for Anheuser Busch! You can take our homes, you can take our call centers and textile mills, you can even take our ports (O.K., we didn’t like that one either) but there is no way you are going to take our beer! If I were Augustus Bush or which ever one of the little inbreeds running the company today, I would tell InBev, come on in, here’s the keys, knock yourself out. I’ll be back in six months.

Why?

If InBev did any market research they would have closed their checkbooks and kept their Belgian asses home because there is no red blooded American out there that is going to chug down this deal. There are some things that are just not natural, and this deal is one of em’. Honestly, Bud really is the worst tasting beer out there…..But it’s our beer, and Bud is THE beer icon, these are the guys that brought us the friggin’ Clydesdale horses and the Bud-Weis-er frogs, and my all time favorite…. the what’s up guys.