Anheuser-Busch
American brewing company acquired by InBev in 2008 in what was marketed as a 'strategic combination of equals' but was actually a hostile extraction.
American brewing company acquired by InBev in 2008 in what was marketed as a 'strategic combination of equals' but was actually a hostile extraction. Anheuser-Busch represents the victim of false coalition tactics.
Pre-merger, AB had industry-leading brewer quality scores, 78% employee engagement, 82% distributor satisfaction, and 12 new products annually. Post-merger: quality dropped to industry-average, employee engagement fell to 34%, distributor satisfaction to 51%, and innovation pipeline collapsed to 3 new products annually. Budweiser market share declined from 15.2% to 11.8%.
AB's fate demonstrates the biological lesson that disguising conquest as coalition destroys trust permanently - and costs 13x more than honest extraction would have.