a***@rip.ax.lt
2010-11-04 15:05:55 UTC
(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: http://goo.gl/AXHLW ). 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...
Continued: http://xrl.us/DethroningKing
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: http://goo.gl/AXHLW ). 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...
Continued: http://xrl.us/DethroningKing