Dethroning the King Read Free Page A

and remained, an American institution.
    The hostile takeover of Anheuser-Busch, which InBev attempted to make look friendly in the end, added two more superlatives to the pile. It represented the largest all-cash acquisition in history, and it marked the last giant merger that was inked before the global financial markets imploded. There were already indications that disaster loomed by the time the two companies first came together, and both sides made savvy moves that kept the deal alive when September hit and banks started collapsing around the world. Merger activity had already plunged by then, and people who depended on big deals to stay busy at work were stuck watching the boring tennis match of barbs slung back and forth between Microsoft and its failed takeover target, Yahoo!
    I ended up growing quite attached to some of this book’s characters—even the ones I never had a chance to meet. Some were loyal to Anheuser-Busch, where one man’s imposing views made life seem black-and-white for decades, while others were tied to the stark, competitive InBev, where the bottom line always dictates. After living and breathing each of these people every day for a year, though, it became impossible not to see even their most indefensible actions in a dozen shades of gray. When two companies that are as diametrically different as Anheuser-Busch and InBev are driven together, even the most simple relationships and decisions—even histories and legacies that have already been written—can quickly grow messy and complicated.

Prologue
    They don’t care what I think anymore.
    â€”August Busch III
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    S ome men golf when they’re looking to unwind. Others take their sports cars out for a drive or toss a few steaks on the grill. August A. Busch III liked to shoot things—ducks in the fall and quail in the winter.
    He learned to love hunting from his father, who learned it from his father, and when he could take time away from the office, he would invite important guests to join him for a day of stalking waterfowl. He was a powerful man during the three decades when he ran Anheuser-Busch—powerful enough to compel some of his weaker-stomached subordinates to trudge into the marshes behind him, even though they’d have preferred throwing breadcrumbs to the birds rather than killing them.
    The sun was slowly setting on August III’s career in the early spring of 2007, when he and several Anheuser-Busch executives flew down to a plantation in Leon County, in northern Florida’s Panhandle region, to hunt quail. He had retired as Anheuser’s chief executive four-and-a-half years prior, had just stepped down as chairman, and now, with his son August IV newly in charge, retained only his position as a member of the company’s board of directors. He was the most influential member of that group by far, but the transition to his son’s regime had been messy and contentious, and August III was feeling marginalized.
    The hunting group was eager to blow off some steam that year following the all-important Super Bowl football game. Everything had gone according to plan for Anheuser-Busch: More than 93 million viewers tuned in on February 4 to watch the spectacle, college—turned-NFL phenomenon Peyton Manning was named its most valuable player, and for a record ninth year in a row, an Anheuser-Busch advertisement won the USA Today Ad Meter poll that ranks consumers’ favorite commercials. With their reign still firmly entrenched—thanks to an ad featuring beach crabs that worshipped in front of a Budweiser-filled cooler—the company’s crack team of marketers breathed a sigh of relief.
    That moment of respite was brief, however, for August A. Busch IV. He had only been running the company for a few months, and his father took issue right from the start with some of his decisions. August III wasn’t the type to quietly voice his displeasure. He had torn