Dethroning the King Read Free Page B

so ferociously into his son that it had created an uncomfortable dynamic on the company’s board of directors. He didn’t approve of the alliances his son was striking with other companies, and he thought his new practice of inviting Wall Street bankers into confidential meetings was foolish. Anheuser-Busch had built itself from the ground up over the course of a century and a half. It didn’t need to ink risky merger deals and rub elbows with fee-hungry bankers to survive.
    As the group of hunting companions emerged from their bedrooms the morning after their arrival in Florida and prepared to head outside, a racket erupted from the plantation’s formidable great room. August III, who had been using his cell phone to check in on things at the office, had hung up and exploded into a full-blown rage, ranting at no one in particular in front of the room’s giant picture window and its view of the lake below. As the decibel level of his voice boomed higher and higher, it became apparent that his fury was fixated on two things: a beer distributing partnership the company had recently signed with foreign rival InBev, and his son’s decision to invite a bunch of bankers down to an internal strategy session he had organized in Mexico just a week or two earlier.
    Anheuser-Busch had been operating in a state of fear for months—everyone knew it was vulnerable to a takeover. By jumping into bed with the aggressive and growth-hungry InBev, even just on a deal to distribute its beers in the United States, he felt his son was asking for trouble.
    â€œThey’ve gone ahead and done this deal,” fumed August III, who had strenuously opposed the joint venture. Anheuser-Busch was slipping out of his control, even with his own namesake in charge. “We’re running scared, and here we are now doing a deal with these guys. We’ve let them inside the tent!” His hunting guests stared uncomfortably at their shoes, toeing the carpet, as the plantation’s wait staff looked on in astonishment from the kitchen.
    August III then shifted tack and blasted his son’s courtship of Wall Street. By stocking what should have been a private meeting in Mexico with so many bankers, who had connections not just to each other but also to Anheuser’s competitors and investors and the media, August IV had chummed the waters in a way that was bound to attract sharks, he contended. His protestations were so forceful that it seemed they would be heard in nearby Tallahassee, where his daughter and her husband ran a beer distributorship.
    The last time August III had become so unglued over a threat to Anheuser-Busch had been in 1991, when President George H.W. Bush violated his “no new taxes” pledge and raised the excise tax on alcohol. August III thought he had played all his cards right: It was a Republican administration, one Busch family knew the other set of Bushes, and he and George W. Bush, the president’s son, had even owned Major League baseball teams together. Those connections still weren’t enough to keep the president from doubling the tax on a six-pack of beer overnight.
    â€œAll you did by bringing those bankers in there was send a telegraph wire out to InBev that you’re ready to be taken over,” August III snapped that day in the plantation house, turning in contempt toward the executives who stood off to the side to distribute some of the blame.
    â€œYou’re putting up a FOR SALE sign. You’re giving away too much information. All you did was get everybody in the world to sharpen their knives!”
    He finally cooled off enough to head into the plantation’s private reserve for the hunt, but the tirade had unnerved the group. They were already concerned that Anheuser-Busch had been left behind as its rivals ballooned in size. Life had been tense at headquarters for months, and everything came into stark relief that morning when they saw the worry