This Bud's for sale

(Wall Street Journal) - If ever an American company represented the land of milk and honey for corporate executives it was Anheuser- Busch, though perhaps the land of hops, rice and barley would be more apt. For decades a palace of well-paid vice presidents in cushy offices presided over the manufacture of Budweiser, America's beer, in that most American of cities, St. Louis. They also oversaw the Busch Gardens theme parks in Virginia and in Florida, where Shamu the killer whale was on the payroll, along with a stable of

250 Clydesdale horses. It was a first-class operation all the way. There were $1,000 dinners, hunting lodges, sky suites at Busch Stadium and a fleet of Dassault Falcon corporate jets with a staff of 20 waiting pilots. Every kitchenette refrigerator at corporate headquarters was well stocked with Bud, Bud Lite and Michelob.

And why shouldn't the execs live well? The massive, 150-year-old company had an estimated value of $40 billion to $50 billion. Budweiser was, and is, one of the most recognized brands in the world, ahead of McDonald's, Disney and Apple. "Few companies on earth were more evocative of America, with all of its history and iconography, than Anheuser-Busch," writes veteran Financial Times journalist Julie MacIntosh in her strenuously reported book, "Dethroning the King: The Hostile Takeover of Anheuser-Busch, an American Icon" (Amazon:

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). As the title suggests, the reign of the King of Beers ended in the summer of

2008, when the company merged with the Brazil-based brewing giant InBev, an outfit about as culturally different from Anheuser-Busch as one could imagine. At $70 a share, or $52 billion, it was the largest all-cash acquisition in history and even more noteworthy because it occurred during the gathering storm of a global financial collapse...

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ab
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I hope InBev is smart enough to keep all those Clydesdales - after all, they are the true source of that horsepiss that Budweiser has the effrontery to call 'beer'.

And of course everyone knows why drinking Budweiser is just like making love in a canoe . . . . .

---- Diogenes

The wars are long, the peace is frail The madmen come again . . . .

Reply to
Diogenes

Not to mention:

"There were $1,000 dinners, hunting lodges, sky suites at Busch Stadium and a fleet of Dassault Falcon corporate jets with a staff of

20 waiting pilots. Every kitchenette refrigerator at corporate headquarters was well stocked with *Bud, Bud Lite and Michelob.*"

If I was Anheuser-Busch CEO, I'd demand better beer in my executive fridge.

-Miles

Reply to
Miles Bader

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