The Prince of Beers Read Online Free Page A

he and Judy had been engaged. They'd even set a wedding date. A few years later, his girlfriend Sage had moved from California to be with him. "Sage Busch," he'd joked. But Judy and Sage had both come and gone.
    He'd done it now, though. A few weeks before, he'd married Kathryn Thatcher, a pretty, deeply private 25-year-old blonde from central Vermont with a marketing degree from Boston College. She was quiet and reserved, not like most of his girls. Sure, he hadn't entirely committed to her, not exactly. He doubted one woman would ever be enough for him. But he'd made Kate his wife, lawfully wedded her in the eyes of God, the state of Missouri, and, most importantly, the board of directors.
    In return they'd given him the company that he loved. And something more: They'd given him the chance to prove himself once and for all to The Chief. "
    August Busch IV, chief executive of The Anheuser-Busch Cos., St. Louis, Missouri.
    Had a ring, didn't it?

* * *
    A-B had faced a clear crisis when The Third kicked out his father in 1975. When he handed power to his son a generation later, the company's problems were less obvious but just as real. Anheuser's business in the United States topped out in 2002. The company had driven its weaker competitors to the brink of extinction and gobbled their market share. The major breweries that remained, Coors and Miller, were powerful enough to stop A-B from gaining further sales at their expense. Anheuser found itself capped at about 50 percent of the American beer market.
    Meanwhile, Busch III focused so heavily on the fight for market share that he failed to react to broader changes working against his company. Even as the United States population grew, beer consumption was flat. The real growth in the American alcohol market was happening at the high end, especially in hard liquor, which had huge profit margins. With its powerful relationships with distributors, Anheuser might have been a natural partner for a big distilled spirits company. But the company never moved into the liquor business. Nor — aside from buying half of the Mexican beer company Grupo Modelo — did Busch III invest in major international expansion.
    As the years passed, industry analysts debated why Busch didn't act. The explanation appeared to be a combination of financial — A-B feared overpaying for foreign breweries — and personal. Busch III's obsession with security and need to micromanage left him uncomfortable doing business too far from St. Louis. Whatever his reasons, his strategy left A-B low on growth prospects by 2002, when he officially passed the company's reins to Patrick Stokes, his most trusted lieutenant. Over the next four years, Anheuser's American market share and profits slipped.
    By 2006, Anheuser-Busch clearly needed new blood at the top, executives who would reconsider its strategy. Maybe it needed to push into energy drinks and bottled water. Maybe it should bid for a wine or spirits company, or make an international acquisition. Those choices would have hurt Anheuser's short-term profits, but a respected chief executive might have convinced the company's shareholders they would pay off in the long run.
    Instead, the board of directors gave the job to The Fourth, who had mostly been confined to the marketing department during his twenty-one years at A-B. He'd had hits and misses along the way; in the early 1990s, he'd overseen the launch of Bud Dry, whose slogan, "Why Ask Why? Try Bud Dry," was not exactly genius. Anheuser eventually dropped Bud Dry, but the failure didn't stop Busch's ascent. Later he encouraged his father to approve the three frogs "Bud-Weis-Er" campaign, which analysts considered a success. He'd also spent years cultivating A-B's relationships with wholesalers and distributors, which in plain English meant hanging out and partying with them — whether at the Lake of the Ozarks, off the coast of Florida, or at a ranch in Montana. An important skill, sure, but Busch IV