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Anheuser-Busch has agreed to sell itself to Belgium-based InBev for $52 billion - despite the fact that A-B CEO August Busch IV swore in April that a deal would not happen during his tenure.
The merged company, to be called Anheuser-Busch InBev, will become the world’s largest brewer - and third-largest consumer product company - with $36.4 billion in annual revenue, writes AdAge. A-B’s North American headquarters will remain in St. Louis, and no breweries will be closed, says InBev CEO Carlos Brito, though the new company will cut $1.5 billion in costs by 2011.
Though it is likely the marketing budget will see its share of cost-cutting measures, agency executives remain hopeful that InBev’s plans to expand Budweiser worldwide will create new opportunities. A-B’s primary agencies are DDB, Euro RSCG, LatinWorks, Cannonball, Hill Holliday, TBWA/Chiat/Day and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.
InBev, currently the world’s second-largest beer maker - just behind SAB Miller - brews Stella Artois and Beck’s. With the acquisition of A-B, the company will capture half the U.S. beer market, and a fifth of China and Russia, writes the AP.
All sectors of the media business will suffer from the weakened economy in 2008 and 2009, with a slump in local advertising particularly hurting newspapers and local TV, according to a new projection from Goldman Sachs.
Broadcast nets will experience…
The New York Times is shuttering its International Herald Tribune site; NYTimes.com will soon host the international news normally reserved for its sister website.
The move is not about cost savings, but rather about growth, NYTimes.com general manager Vivian Schiller…
Unilever’s Vaseline set forth on an unusual research project in a small town in Alaska. Setting up a storefront, the company began giving away free bottles of lotion and asking recipients to name the person who had recommended they come…
Meet the Press, the show hosted by Tim Russert for 17 years before his death last June, is beginning to slip in ratings.
Last month, CBS’s Face the Nation pulled ahead of Meet the Press for the first time in two…
Bloggers collectively create nearly one million blog posts each day, and half of bloggers believe blogs will be a primary source of news and entertainment in the next five years, according to Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere Report, MarketingCharts writes.…
Wal-Mart and Costco reported same-store gains in September, with sales rising 2.4% and 9% respectively. Sales at Target stores open at least a year fell 3%, writes Retailer Daily.
Below, fiscal results from the discount retail giants:
Sales of food and…
