Think Twice Finance

Budwiser Fights for Its Life: When It’s Not All About the Money.

How I love it when family companies defend themselves in takeover battles! The sheer deliciousness of a struggle between family, tradition, big slow horses, and pride of place generally, and a group of folks who just want to make money is almost as good as a female wrestling tag team match. Didn’t you just love the News Corp vs. Wall Street Journal thing? And how about the acquisitions of Chelsea and Man United?

News, sport teams and OhMyGod, now they’re after a sacred beer! And it’s a bunch of Belgians! Where is Belgium anyhow? Isn’t that where they make that UnAmerican Money - the EuroThingy place? This will throw a spanner into our plans to rename Missouri – The “Show Me” State. We were going to call it Budweiser – The “Chug Me” State. And St. Louis could be Busch City. Now that’s a cool city name. The Belgian idea of a cool city name is Antwerp. There obviously will be no reasoning with these people.

The Budweiser people are pulling out all the stops. They have gotten rid of the Mexican guy on the Board of Directors. (Possible conflict of interest – which means they are thinking of buying or selling a 50% interest in the company that makes Corona Beer.) Good. It’s a sissy beer anyhow. Hard to imagine Mexicans making Corona Beer. I mean, Tequila and Corona? Would The Outlaw Jose Wales drink Corona? Of course not! He would drink Dos Equis, the beer of “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” who doles out advice like “It’s never too early to start beefing up your obituary.” Now that’s a proper Mexican beer! But I digress.

And the Buddites are floating plans to sell Buscharama, the place where you go to have fun with the family if you’re a Bud guy. It didn’t make money, it seems. And they are going to cut costs. All this in case some of the Bud stockholders bought the stock to make money with it, obviously the angle the Belgians are working on. Those Belgians bear watching – they got the European Union headquarters to locate there – making them the only Europeans that will ever benefit financially from the European Union. Or maybe only bureaucrats will live in a city named Antwerp.

In any event, my money is on the guys from InBev prevailing. They have more money, and baby, like it or not, after the foam dies away it really is All About the Money. Let’s try to get them to change the company name to Clydesdale, Inc. Maybe they could change the name of Antwerp while they are at it. How about Global City? Believe me, this can all be worked out for the better if they just hire one of the Three American Spin Doctors to name stuff after the deal.