Reject The InBev Offer

Giant InBev has offered $65 a share to purchase giant A-B. Such offers between giants are fairly common in today’s global economy, and I usually ignore them.

Not this time, though.

Anheuser-Busch is a St. Louis-based company whose presence can be seen in the windows of almost every bar and restaurant in the region, and can be felt in boardrooms, schools, food pantries, music festivals, baseball stadiums, and living rooms from as far out from the Arch as a beer truck can drive in a day.

In 2007, Anheuser-Busch employed 5,033 people in the City of St. Louis, and produced direct revenues reflected in the City budget of $21.3 million — including $5,939,434 in real property taxes.

Purchase by a Belgian brewer is not going to make all of that disappear. In fact, its US-based breweries are what makes A-B interesting to InBev. What could disappear, though, is the home-court advantage that the St. Louis region holds in the thousands of philanthropic and business decisions that A-B currently makes each year.

Anheuser-Busch said that its board of directors will act in the best interests of the company’s stockholders. If you are one of those A-B shareholders who lives within 500 miles of Pestalozzi Street, your best interest is certainly to instruct the company’s directors to reject this offer.