By now you’ve already seen the news that Anheuser-Busch InBev has taken another step closer to realizing their quest for world domination in the beer business. They’d already owned half of Mexican powerhouse brewer Grupo Modelo — makers of Corona, among other brands — but it was non-voting stock and they asserted very little control over them. In fact, Corona is often a competitor in the U.S., usually with non-Bud distributors. The irony, of course, is whether you bought Bud or Corona, eventually at least some of that money still made its way to ABI. The phrase “laughing all the way to the bank” springs to mind. Hard as it to believe, they already have a new website up even though the merger’s only been finalized in the last twenty-four hours. The name of the new site is Global Beer Leader. Does anybody else think that sounds ominously close to North Korea’s “dear leader?”
ABI is paying Grupo Model $20.1 billion to become ABIM, making it the second-biggest deal ever brokered in the beer world. The first was the $52 billion InBev paid to merge with Anheuser-Busch in 2008. The deal still needs government approval, and will likely be addressed and decided in the first quarter of next year.
According to the deal, Crown Imports — the current importer of Corona and other Grupo Modelo brands under the Constellation Brands umbrella — will continue to be the importer to the U.S. In fact, part of the deal includes the sale of the half of Crown Imports owned by Grupo Modelo to Constellation Brands, who had owned the other half, for $1.85 billion. That gives them 100% control over the distribution of the Modelo brands in America. ABIM head honcho Carlos Brito told Harry Schumacher this morning that they’re looking at this as a golden opportunity primarily to combine Bud and Corona outside the U.S. in the global beer market.
Adam Nason at Beer Pulse has a helpful chart showing that the merger gives ABIM control over 8 of the top 15 global beer brands, just over half.
Full details of the deal can be found at the new website Global Beer Leader.
NOTE: This NOT their official new logo, I made this up as a parody.
