Comments on: Mad Money Man Jim Cramer Declares Beer Wars Over

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:22:26 +0000

I find it very amusing that he is making comments about the price increases. What about Cigarettes, Confection and OTP? Three categories that once the leaders go up, the rest follow. Those categories and their leaders (Hershey and Philip Morris) all go up once “the big one” does.

By: Jim Dorsch

Jim Dorsch — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:20:30 +0000

Regarding the ‘oligopoly’ (hard to spell that this early in the morning), the majors vary their pricing all the way down to specific packages and geographic areas, and not in lockstep. Just a few years ago the members of the ‘oligopoly’ were engaged in a brutal price war.

By: J

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:24:02 +0000

C.Pete,

You may be able to make an argument that on the global scene, M&A’s are more recent, but in fact Scottish & Newcastle was formed in 1960 (and began gobbling up breweries until they, themselves, were acquired by Heineken and Carlsberg). Heineken’s mergerous ways began in 1968 when they bought out rival Amstel. While SAB didn’t buy Miller until 2002, they’d already picked up plenty of international breweries by that time. Interbrew and AmBev (who eventually became InBev) had likewise been individually buying up globally through the 90s. By the time they bought A-B, they had nearly 200 brands, something that didn’t happen overnight. In many cases, they were buying up brands few Americans have heard of, so it wasn’t particularly newsworthy here. But the fact remains, international beer companies are not exactly new to the game.

By: California Pete

California Pete — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:01:40 +0000

I don’t know, Jay. While I agree that the word “sudden” is inappropriate, the last decade has been truly novel in the brewing industry. During the 20th century, we saw massive consolidation in the United States and many other countries at the national scale, continuing a process that had begun in the late 1800s. But the dramatic INTERnational consolidation we are now witnessing is largely a post-2000 phenomenon, building on distributional partnerships of the past century. The global beer scene continues to be one of fragmented, national and regional marketplaces, but the ownership of brands defies modern boundaries.

What this means for prices, profit margins, and investing, I have no idea.

By: J

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:55:28 +0000

Ryan, thanks for pointing that out; I’ve fixed it to reflect views. J

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:13:18 +0000

The new york times section that contains that article is actually ‘BreakingViews.com’, its a syndicated article from the site of the same name, and an opinion piece, not a news piece. But i nonetheless agree that they have no &*(% clue what they’re talking about.

By: Big Tex

Big Tex — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:08:49 +0000

That was painful to watch. My head hurts.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:33:04 +0000

Well said Jay, it’s as if these people do no research whatsoever! I guess you can’t really expect anything else from a screaming jackass, though.