Dive Brief:
- Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Carlos Brito said that the company's acquisition of SABMiller is not about dominating the U.S. beer market but rather the opportunity to access new emerging markets and that competition in the U.S. beer market will actually improve.
- AB InBev has proposed selling SABMiller's 58% stake in MillerCoors to demonstrate its intentions to not overtake 70% of the U.S. beer market, which could happen if the company did not sell the MillerCoors stake.
- "The purpose of this transaction is to enhance our ability to serve new markets, particularly in Africa, Asia and Central and South America," Brito said at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing. "If anything, our divestiture of SABMiller’s interest in MillerCoors will create an even more competitive marketplace, building upon what is already a golden age of consumer choice in American brewing."
Dive Insight:
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) believes past mergers of brewers have created "beer behemoths" that have harmed consumers and said that this megamerger should be considered with a "high degree of skepticism."
Bob Pease, CEO of the Brewers Association, reiterated a point that has come up since the merger's announcement: the takeover's impact on craft brewers' access to distribution and the merged company's influence over U.S. wholesalers. "In communities where ABI or a closely related wholesaler is one of two choices for a brewer to access the retail market, the wholesale tier is simply not competitive," according to Pease.
"Nothing from this transaction will impact any distributor," Brito said.
Brito said that the takeover will not impact the U.S. beyond reducing MillerCoors' ownership from two major brewers to one.
"It will not change consumer choice, it will not change the competitive pricing environment, it will not change our market share or our longstanding support for the three-tier system, it will not change our support of U.S. growers and suppliers, and it will not change the explosive growth of craft brewers or their access to the market through the MillerCoors distributor network," he said.