Anheuser-Busch InBev is set to report its fourth-quarter and full-year results on Thursday (8 March). Here, just-drinks takes a look at highs and lows for the company in the three months to the end of December.
- Early in the quarter, A-B InBev confirmed plans to invest US$1bn to modernise and expand its breweries and packaging facilities in the US. The brewer will pump the funds into its US operations before the end of 2014.
- The spectre of a mega-merger between A-B InBev and SABMiller reared its head yet again in October. SABMiller’s shares spiked on 6 October after a report by Brazilian publication IG.com said that A-B InBev is mulling an US$80bn bid for the world number two. While nothing further has panned out since the report, speculation of a tie-up between the two has bubbled below the surface for quite some time.
- Towards the end of October, the brewer extended its partnership with FIFA. A-B InBev will continue to have Budweiser as a headline sponsor at two further FIFA World Cup football tournaments, in 2018 and 2022.
- Could we see the end of the legal row between A-B InBev and Budejovicky Budvar some time soon? Probably not, but the Austrian ruling in A-B InBev’s favour in late-October prompted just-drinks’ deputy editor, Chris Mercer, to ponder the possible presence of a moment of clarity in the tussle.
- The spotlight turned to China in November, with reports linking A-B InBev to Kingstar Beer Group. Could the global brewer be poised to make further in-roads into China’s lively beer market?
- November saw analysts at Morgan Stanley suggest that the cure for A-B InBev’s ills in the US’s stagnant beer market could be to replicate its strategy in Brazil: Savings from the brewer’s US distribution system could improve its EBITDA in the US by $2bn within the next four years, the analysts claimed.
- Finally, and although outside of the quarter under review, it should be mentioned that, in January, A-B InBev confirmed that its president for the US, Dave Peacock, would stand down.
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