A compelling offer is on the table with huge ramifications for Missouri. A business analyst says the bid for Anheuser-Busch by Belgium brewer InBev is a serious offer with serious implications for St. Louis.
InBev has bid $46.35 billion for Anheuser-Busch, which has been an independent company headquartered in St. Louis for the past 156 years. The Busch board of directors is weighing its options, one being the possible purchase of Grupo Modelo of Mexico. Anheuser-Busch owns a bit more than half of Modelo. It is thought Busch is seeking to buy Modelo so that its worth could exceed what InBev would be willing or able to pay.
The former dean of the Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, Stuart Greenbaum, doubts the strategy would work, even if Busch pulls it off. Greenbaum estimates the acquisition would add between $10 and $20 billion to the cost of Anheuser-Busch, which he says shouldn’t be insurmountable.
Greenbaum says it will be difficult for the Busch board to turn down the offer and the family won’t be able to block it, because it owns so little of the company anymore. Greenbaum says the acquisition of Busch by InBev would be a blow to St. Louis, because, as Greenbaum says, Anheuser-Busch has invested so much in St. Louis and it’s unlikely InBev will.
Download/listen Brent Martin reports (1:20 MP3)
