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The City: Beer group gets spirited idea
Despite the flurry of mergers and acquisitions over the past few years, the world’s big brewers are under pressure from the growing trend for consumers to switch to wines and spirits. Undoubtedly, new markets are opening to them, notably China and India, but in the more developed world, where profit margins are higher, consumers are spurning beer, especially in the biggest market of all, North America. And if you want evidence of that trend, look at the actions of Anheuser-Busch, which until recently was the world’s number-one brewer, a title it still holds in the United States. It has announced a third successive quarter of lower profits and issued a warning that its full-year earnings will fall by about 10%. ...
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