USA: Anheuser-Busch heir offers to buy back Budweiser and Bud Light
Anheuser-Busch heir Billy Busch has offered to buy back the business that bears his family name, if AB InBev offered to sell it, The Drinks Business reported on August 17.
In a recent interview on OutKick, Busch said that if AB InBev wants to offload Budweiser – and its low calorie variant Bud Light – then he would be happy to buy the brand back.
Busch said: “If they don’t want that brand any longer, sell it back to the Busch family. Sell it to me. I’ll be the first in line to buy that brand back from you, and we’ll make that brand great again.”
The Busch family sold Anheuser-Busch to the Belgium beer giant InBev in 2008, creating the global beer behemoth that is now known as AB InBev. However, during the interview, Busch questioned AB InBev’s management of the Budweiser brand, which counts the Bud Light variant as part of its remit.
In describing why he wanted to offer to buy the Budweiser brand back, Busch explained his views on the difference between how Anheuser-Busch was led before the sale compared to how AB InBev runs things today and insisted that his family spent time getting to know its drinkers and spent time with many of them.
Busch said: “They knew who their drinkers were. They were with the bar owners and the restaurant owners and the liquor store owners and talking to these people day in and day out. Even my dad at 89 years old, 90 years old, he was still going to the bars selling Budweiser back in those days. We’ve always cared very, very much about the people in America.”
AB InBev has begun selling off subsidiary brands as well as laying off staff after losing market value since the social media tie-up with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney – a move that led to her speaking up about mistreatment while in a media partnership with Bud Light – and the decline of some of its core brands to competitors such as Modelo Especial.
Since then, Bud Light has dropped off the top ten list of America’s most bestselling beers entirely with data showing it placing at number 15.
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