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“Anger and Dismay at the Sale of a City Treasure,” said the New York Times headline Thursday, over a story reporting that “in the end, sentiment and tradition were no match for a $52 billion offer from the Belgian beer giant InBev.”
The Star got it wrong. Labatt was bought up in 1995 by the Belgian Brewer Interbrew. InBev didn’t even exist then. It was formed in 2004 when Interbrew merged with that “largest Brazilian brewer,” AmBev. Interbrew hardly snapped it up. InBev’s corporate headquarters remained in Belgium but corporate power shifted to Brazil. And Labatt was quick to see the difference — its Toronto plant was soon shut down. Brazilians dominate InBev’s executive board of management and Brazilian investment bankers are InBev’s major individual shareholders. They and the Brazilian CEO, Carlos Brito, who drove the Anheuser-Busch deal, have set the corporate culture, one said to be marked by ruthless cost cutting and a boundless appetite for mergers and acquisitions.
