July 13, 2008
End of an Brewing Era - now Anheuser-Busch InBev
Anheuser-Busch Agrees to Be Sold to InBev
New York Times    
By MICHAEL J. de la MERCED
Published: July 14, 2008

Anheuser-Busch agreed on Sunday night to sell itself to the Belgian brewer InBev for about $52 billion, people
briefed on the matter said, putting control of the nation’s largest beer maker and a fixture of American culture
into a European rival’s hands.

The all-cash deal, for $70 a share, would create the world’s largest brewer, uniting the maker of Budweiser
and Michelob with the producer of Stella Artois, Bass and Brahma. Together, the two companies would have
sales of more than $36 billion a year, surpassing the current No. 1 brewer, SABMiller of London.

The combined company is expected to be named Anheuser-Busch InBev, fulfilling a promise by the Belgian
company to include the Anheuser name in the new brewer’s title, people briefed on the matter said. Anheuser
will be given two seats on the board, including one for August A. Busch IV, the company’s chief executive and
a scion of its controlling family.

For millions, Budweiser is synonymous with American beer. Because of Anheuser’s huge advertising budget
and strong distribution network, few brands are as omnipresent in daily life as Budweiser and its more
popular sibling, Bud Light.

Several American beer giants have already been taken over by larger overseas rivals in the last decade. The
Miller Brewing Company was sold to South African Breweries in 1999, and the Adolph Coors Company was
bought by Molson of Canada in 2005. (Last year, Molson Coors agreed to merge its United States operations
with those of SABMiller.)

Anheuser’s concession caps a wave of consolidation within the beer industry. InBev and SABMiller,
themselves the products of mergers this decade, have led efforts to gain distribution channels across the
globe. The rising cost of beer ingredients like grain has also driven companies to seek greater scale and
purchasing power.

The deal marks a sharp reversal for Anheuser, based since it was founded in St. Louis. When InBev
announced its initial $46.3 billion offer last month, Anheuser mounted a fierce defense. It drew upon its
heritage and its history as a major benefactor of its hometown, and argued that it could increase its profits
alone.

Many politicians, including Matthew R. Blunt, the Republican governor of Missouri, and Senator Barack
Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, expressed support for keeping
Anheuser independent.

Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has major ties to Anheuser. His wife, Cindy, is
the chairwoman of Hensley & Company, a large Anheuser distributor, and holds a significant amount of
Anheuser stock.

The battle grew nasty early on, as both Anheuser and InBev resorted to lawsuits as bludgeons. Last week,
InBev began a campaign to oust Anheuser’s board, while Anheuser accused its suitor of lying about its
financial commitments and criticized its beer business in Cuba.

But Mr. Busch, the company’s chief executive whose family has controlled Anheuser for more than a century,
was facing pressure to consider a deal. Anheuser’s stock had remained mostly stagnant in recent years, but
has climbed since InBev made its offer public last month.

Several of Anheuser’s large shareholders, including the billionaire Warren E. Buffett, had indicated that they
were leaning toward supporting InBev, people briefed on the matter said. The talks were confidential.

Anheuser approached InBev last Wednesday, seeking the company’s best and final offer, these people said.
InBev responded by raising its bid to $70 from $65.

Though InBev professed a desire to make a friendly deal, it showed little hesitation in going hostile. It
nominated an uncle of Mr. Busch’s as a member of its proposed slate of directors.

But InBev pledged to keep Budweiser as the new company’s flagship brand and St. Louis as its North
American headquarters.

One unresolved matter, however, is Anheuser’s ties to Grupo Modelo, the Mexican brewer of Corona. Through
Anheuser’s stake in Modelo, the Mexican company has both a right to approve a change in control and the
right of first refusal to buy back Anheuser’s 50 percent holding. Talks may begin soon, a person briefed on the
matter said.

Anheuser had once sought to acquire the remaining half of Modelo it did not own, as a means to make itself
too expensive for InBev, but those talks faltered.

Since 1860, Anheuser has been controlled by members of the Anheuser or Busch families, which expanded
the company from a small Midwestern brewer into a beer juggernaut. On the back of Budweiser, Anheuser
steadily pushed aside competitors like Schlitz with a mix of brute force and marketing guile.

One of the company’s hallmarks is its omnipresent advertising. Last year, it spent about $24 million on ads,
according to TNS, a market research company, and it is the biggest buyer of Super Bowl ads. Dozens of its
commercials, like those featuring Clydesdales, Spuds MacKenzie and the “Wassup” guys, have been
ingrained in pop culture.

Yet the domestic beer market has struggled recently as customers drifted toward wine and spirits, craft brews
and imports. Though Anheuser holds significant stakes in Modelo and Tsingtao of China, the bulk of its sales
come from the United States.

InBev has its own long history, with its predecessor having been founded in 1366. But the modern company
sprang from the 2004 union of Interbrew of Belgium and AmBev of Brazil. Though the combined company
remains based in Leuven, its chief executive is Carlos Brito, who led AmBev before the merger.

Mr. Brito, an engineer by training, is known for his skills in both deal-making and cost-cutting. Yet analysts
have questioned how much he can cut costs at the combined company, because of the limited overlap of
Anheuser’s and InBev’s markets.

InBev is taking on about $45 billion in debt to finance the deal. In a sign of confidence that the deal would go
through, the company began syndicating those loans to other banks on Friday.

The two companies already share some ties. InBev distributes Budweiser in Canada, and Anheuser imports
InBev beers like Bass. In 2006, InBev sold its Rolling Rock brand to Anheuser-Busch for $82 million.
Chairman         Patrick T. (Pat) Stokes

President, CEO, and Director; President and Chairman,
Anheuser-Busch, Inc.        
 August A. Busch IV

VP and CFO         W. Randolph Baker
August Anheuser Busch IV (born 1964) is the great-great-grandson of
Anheuser-Busch founder Adolphus Busch, the son of former
chairman, president and CEO August Busch III. On December 1, 2006,
he succeeded Patrick Stokes, who held the positions of president and
CEO of the company since July 2002.

Busch is known by industry insiders as
"The Fourth".
August Busch IV and Kathryn Thatcher wedding photo in front of Clydesdales and Hanover Inn
Anheuser-Busch traces its origins back to
the Bavarian brewery, which was
established in 1852. Eberhard Anheuser
acquired the Bavarian brewery in 1860 and
renamed it E. Anheuser & Co. In 1864, his
son-in-law, Adolphus Busch, joined the
company that would later become
Anheuser-Busch.

13 July 2008 InBev and Anheuser-Busch
Agree to Combine, Creating the Global
Leader in Beer with Budweiser as its
Flagship Brand.
InBev (Euronext: INB) is the second largest brewery company in the world. While its core business is beer, the company also has a strong presence in the
soft drink market in Latin America. It employs about 86,000 people and is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium.

InBev was created in 2004 when the Belgian company
Interbrew and the Brazilian company AmBev merged, creating the world's largest brewer at that time.

InBev has operations in over 30 countries and sales in over 130 countries. In 2006 it had a market capitalization of €30.6 billion and net profit of €3.2 billion
on sales of €13.3 billion.

InBev was created in 2004 from the merger of the Belgian company Interbrew and the Brazilian company AmBev. Before the merger with Ambev, Interbrew
was the third largest brewing company in the world by volume, Anheuser-Busch was the largest, followed by SABMiller in second place. Heineken
International was in fourth place and AmBev was the world's fifth largest brewer.

Interbrew

Interbrew's roots can be traced back to 1366 in Den Horen in Leuven when the Artois brewery was founded. In 1987 Artois, and the Walloon-based brewer
Piedboeuf, came together to form Interbrew. The move onto the international scene only happened when Interbrew acquired the Canadian beer brand
Labatt. The transaction also included Labatt's assets, which included the Toronto Blue Jays baseball club, the Toronto Argonauts football club, and The
Sports Network. The latter at the time was not much smaller than Interbrew, and since then the company had been considered a multinational with both
Canadian and Belgian roots.

Some important Interbrew brands are Stella Artois, Boddingtons, Beck's, Staropramen, Jupiler, Leffe, Labatt, Hoegaarden and Bass.

In December 2001 Interbrew, Danone (former owner of Kronenbourg, and two other smaller brewers) were fined €91m for operating a cartel in Belgium
while four Luxembourg companies were fined €448,000 the same month.]

AmBev was a Brazilian beer company formed by a merger in 1999 between the Brahma and Antarctica breweries. It had a dominant position in South
America and the Caribbean.

InBev announced in 2005 and confirmed in 2006 that it would move the brewing of Hoegaarden to the Piedboeuf brewery in Jupille, which resulted in some
protests. In September 2007 however, it was announced that brewing would continue at the Hoegaarden Brewery in Hoegaarden.


On June 12, 2008, InBev announced that it has made a US$46 billion offer for the brewing firm Anheuser-Busch.] If successful, it would join two of the world's
four largest brewing companies (based on revenue) and create a company that brews three of the top beers in the world - Bud Light, Budweiser and Skol.
InBev also stated that the merger would not result in any U.S. brewery closures and they would also attempt to keep on management and board members
from both companies.

On Sunday, July 13, 2008, Anheuser-Busch announced that they had agreed to an acquisition by Belgian brewer InBev valued at about US$52 billion in cash,
or $70 per share. As a condition, InBev will be renamed
Anheuser-Busch InBev and Anheuser-Busch would retain two seats on the board of directors
The brands

* Absolut Cut (Sweden)
* Alexander Keith's (Canada)
* Andes (Argentina)
* Anheuser-Busch (United States) acquired
2008
* Antarctica (Brazil)
* Apatinska pivara (Serbia)
o Jelen pivo
o Pils Light
* Aqua Fratelli Vita (Brazil)
* AstikA (Bulgaria)
* Baisha (China)
* BagBier (Russia)
o BagBier
o BagBier Classicheskoye
o BagBier Krepkoye
o BagBier Nashe
* Bass (United Kingdom)
* Beck's (Germany)
* Belle-Vue (Belgium)
o Belle-Vue Kriek
o Belle-Vue Kriek Extra
o Belle-Vue Framboise
o Belle-Vue Gueuze
* Bergenbier (Romania)
* Boddingtons (United Kingdom)
* Bohemia (Brazil)
o Bohemia Pilsen
o Bohemia Escura
o Bohemia Weiss
o Bohemia Royal Ale
o Bohemia Confraria
* Borsodi Sör (Hungary)
* Boomerang (France)
* Borostyán (Hungary)
* Brahma (Global)
* Breda (The Channel Islands) Still Available

* Cafri (South Korea)
* Caracu (Brazil)
* Cass (South Korea)
o Cass Fresh
o Cass Light
o Cass Red
o Cass Lemon
* Castlemaine XXXX (owned by Castlemaine
Perkins Pty Ltd.)
* Chernigivske (Ukraine)
o Chernigivske Svitle
o Chernigivske Premium
o Chernigivske Mitsne
o Chernigivske Temne
o Chernigivske Bile
o Chernigivske Bila Nich
o Chernigivske Bagryane
o Chernigivske Fitness+
* Diebels (Germany)
* Diekirch (Luxembourg)
o Diekirch Grand Cru
o Diekirch Grande Réserve
o Diekirch Exclusive
* Dimix (Germany)
* Dommelsch (Netherlands)
o Dommelsch Pilsener
o Dommelsch Ice
o Dommelsch Dominator
* Double Deer (China)
o E-Generation
o Premium Light
o Dry Beer
* Dutch Gold (Netherlands)
* Eiken Artois
* Franziskaner Weissbier (Germany)
* Franziskaner Hefe-Weissbier Hell
(Germany)
* Franziskaner Hefe-Weissbier Dunkel
(Germany)
# Guaraná Antarctica (Brazil)
# Guaraná Brahma (Brazil)
# GuoGuang (China)
# Haacke-Beck (Germany)
# Hasseröder (Germany)
# Hertog Jan (Netherlands)

* Primator
* Oud Bruin
* Grand Prestige
* Tripel
* Dubbel
* Winterbier
* Bockbier
* Meibock

# Hoegaarden (Belgium)
# Hougaerdse Das (Belgium)
# Jinlin (China)
# Jinlongquan (China)

* Draft
* Refreshing

# Julius (Belgium)
# Jupiler (Belgium)

* Jupiler N.A.
* Jupiler Blue

# KK (China)
# Kamenitza (Bulgaria)
# Klinskoye (Russia)

* Klinskoye Svetloye
* Klinskoye Zolotoye
* Klinskoye Lux
* Klinskoye Redkoye
* Klinskoye Arriva
* Klinskoye Samurai

# Kokanee (Canada)

* Kokanee
* Kokanee Gold
* Kokanee Light
* Kokanee Frost

# La Bécasse (France)

* La Bécasse Kriek
* La Bécasse Raspberry
* La Bécasse Gueuze

# Labatt Family (Canada) Acquired in 1995

* Labatt Blue
* Labatt Blue Light
* Labatt .5
* Labatt Lite
* Labatt 50
* John Labatt Classic
* Labatt Genuine
* Labatt Extra Dry Lager
* Labatt Wildcat
* Labatt Ice
* Labatt Sterling

# Lakeport (Canada)
# Leffe (Global)
# Liber (Brazil)
# Löwenbräu (Germany)
# Löwenbräu Original (Germany)
# Löwenbräu Oktoberfestbier (Germany)
# Marathon (Brazil)
# Mousel (Luxembourg)
# Pivara Trebjesa (Montenegro)

* Nik Cool
* Nik Gold
* Nikšicko pivo
* Nikšicko tamno

# Noroc (Romania)
# OB (South Korea)
# Oranjeboom (Netherlands)

* Oranjeboom Premium Pilsener
* Oranjeboom Premish Malt

# Original (Brasil)
# Peeterman Artois
# Permskoye Gubernskoye (Russia)

* Permskoye Gubernskoye Svetloye

# Piedboeuf (Belgium)

* Piedboeuf Blond
* Piedboeuf Brown
* Piedboeuf Triple

# Quilmes (Argentina)
# Red Shiliang (China)
# Rifey (Russia)
# Rogan (Ukraine)

* Rogan Lehke
* Rogan Tradytsiyne
* Rogan Tradytsiyne
* Rogan Monastyrske Temne
* Rogan Veselyi Monach
* Rogan Bezalkoholne
* Rogan Kampai
* Rogan Arriva

# Safir (Belgium)
# Santai (China)
# Sedrin (China)
# Sibirskaya Korona (Siberian Crown)
(Russia)
# Skol (Brazil)
# Spaten (Germany)
# St. Pauli Girl (USA)

* St. Pauli Girl Lager
* St. Pauli Girl Special Dark
* St. Pauli Girl Non-Alcoholic

# Staropramen (Czech Republic)
# Stella Artois (Global)

* Artois Bock
* Peeterman Artois

# Sukita (Brazil)
# Taller (Ukraine)
# Tennent's (United Kingdom)

* Tennent's Super
* Tennent's Ember
* Tennent's Extra Lager
* Tennent's Light Ale
* Tennent's Pilsner
* Tennent's Special
* Tennent's Velvet Ale
* Tennent's Stout (Export)
* Tennent's 1885 Lager (Export)
* Tennent's Scotch Ale (Export)

# Tinkov Russian Lager (Russia)
# Tolstiak (Russia)

* Tolstiak Dobroye
* Tolstiak Svetloye
* Tolstiak Zaboristoye
* Tolstiak Krepkoye
* Tolstiak Grechisnoye

# Vieux Temps (Belgium)
# Wolters (Germany)
# Whitbread (United Kingdom) (purchased
from Whitbread Group plc in 2001)
# Yali (China)
# Yantar (Ukraine)
# Zagrebacka pivovara (Croatia)

* Božicno Pivo
* Ožujsko Pivo
* Ožujsko Cool
* Ožujsko Izzy
* Ožujsko Strong
* Fresssh by Ožujsko
* Tomislav

# Zizhulin (China)
# Zhujiang (China)
Anheuser-Busch Brewery as seen from St. Wenceslaus Church
where Johann Franz Maurer once worked and worshipped.