Australia: AB InBev sells Carlton & United Breweries

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Asahi goes from 1% of Australian market to over 50% in a single swoop.
Also gets Pirate life and 4 Pines in this.

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Is RateBeer for sale yet? I probably have 110K + OT in my bank account right now. Yo InBev, HMU!

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RateBeer would never sell out bro

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Maybe AB Inbev can see the potential of Ratebeers expansion into Australia to get back that market share?

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It’s weird that they bought RateBeer with such a strong will to aim into the Australian Market and now they sell one of the biggest beer company they own there.

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apparently ABI and Asahi had had talks before.
then came the failed listing on the Hong Kong Stock exchange.
After ABI pulled out of that they called Asahi and made a deal. Dumped Australia to get some needed cash.

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Large organisations rarely behave consistently. And when a merged entity is highly geared and there’s recent evidence that it is a problem the financial goal is going to come first.

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Just wanted to mentioned to the curious that RateBeer is part of ABI through ZX Ventures, a US corporation. We aren’t going to be part of this sale.

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But will the ZX office in Melbourne be retained? Isn’t the Australian production/distribution of Goose Island part of the Asahi transaction?

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ZX seem pretty cagey about their Melbourne location, but their head seems to work at Southbank/ Freshwater place (ie CUB). I think I nominally used to work in that building. Maybe different people will go different ways. Maybe Australia will be more appealing as an AB InBev sandbox when they have no real market presence here. Perhaps there is a plan, but more likely these are minor details to be worked through on a best endeavours basis.

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Yeah, there are several options moving forward and I have confidence we’ll find a best route forward.

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