Dive Brief:
- Anheuser-Busch InBev will move its U.S. marketing and sales department to New York early next year, as the company looks for ways to boost its brands.
- The brewer will add a new office to its existing NY operations to house roughly 250 people and a newly formed "U.S. commercial strategy office" that will oversee marketing and sales.
- The world's largest brewer will also relocate its high-end unit, which works on brands such as Stella Artois and Shock Top, to New York.
Dive Insight:
This is obviously bad news for St. Louis, where Anheuser-Busch was born. The city will keep AB InBev's corporate headquarters, but this latest news comes on top of the loss of hundreds of jobs at the brewer since it was acquired by InBev in 2008. And adding a bit of grief to the whole matter is that AB InBev made this announcement almost a year to the day after ADM rejected St. Louis in a much-publicized, high stakes battle for its headquarters.