Belgian Co Readies Potentially Hostile Takeover of Busch

[StlSluggers]

My first thought was this could be very bad for St. Louis.

I agree. Many jobs would be lost, undoubtedly, as the companies merge similar services.

In the past 6 months both my company and my wife's was bought out so I'm becoming very familiar with it.

I worked for 4 years in the corp fin dept of a company that bought 4 companies per year, on average. I've actually done the math on who to lay off and why - and picked up their work. The biggest reason for acquisitions are those overhead savings right there.

[Mookie4ever]

My first thought was this could be very bad for St. Louis.

I don't see how. It's not like they are going to brew the beer in Belgium and import it.

The brewery isn't going anywhere but many corporate and support jobs will be lost.

gotcha

yeah, that would suck.

[Tavish]

InBev Stadium? HAHAHAHA

[The Artful Dodger]

does this mean they will be able to make Budwieser taste good?

I wish the Trappist monks were taking over instead.

[StlSluggers]

InBev Stadium? HAHAHAHA

yeah, that would suck.

[bleach168]

I'm guessing the weak dollar is playing its part in this story.

[jlm53089]

If this happens... Busch has many theme parks as well. Many Brewerys. and many employees.
Its kinda surprising to see a non-American company doing a buyout this big.

[JTWood]

It's official: Sold for $70/share.

[curious_george_43545]

Wow, that sucks. I wonder what that means for all the people employed by Anheuser-Busch

[StlSluggers]

Wow, that sucks. I wonder what that means for all the people employed by Anheuser-Busch

Most people won't get laid off. I imagine their current, oppressive* cost-cutting policies will remain in effect, which will make quality of work decrease. Overall, though, the people who should be the most worried here in St. Louis are the white collar workers. Overhead can easily be centralized, so I would expect a consolidation that results in layoffs in that area of the company. I'm glad I got out of Finance a couple years ago. This could really dilute the local market.

Personally, we're looking at the silver lining here. We've already had a meeting this morning to discuss how we can go about contacting their web analysts to see if we can get them to jump ship. We've been trying to hire WAs for over a year, and we've managed to get exactly 1 that had actual experience in the field. Their greed could work out well for us.

* - Nationally, they'll talk about trimming benefits and buyouts, but locally, they've reported much more ridiculous "cost saving" measures. For instance, one story I heard on KMOX was that AB employees have to return their old, empty ink pen if they want to get another one from the supply closet. Craziness.