Dethroning the King: The Hostile Takeover of Anheuser-Busch, an American Icon
Julie MacIntosh
(Wiley)

Dethroning the King: The Hostile Takeover of Anheuser-Busch, an American Icon is the fascinating novel from author and Financial Times journalist Julie MacIntosh.

The book surrounds the surprisingly unreported event of when America’s “King of Beers” (Budweiser) was unwillingly handed over to InBev when its former home, Anheuser-Busch, merged with the Belgian company in 2008 (although InBev is technically owned by Brazilians.)

Quotes the author, “Few companies on earth were more evocative of America, with all of its history and iconography, than Anheuser-Busch.” Why then, was this event unheard of? Especially considering that it was the largest all-cash merging in history ($52 billion) and happened during a global financial collapse. Certainly with America’s love of beer and our fervent supply of Wall Street junkies, we would have heard about this, right? Wrong.

MacIntosh describes in accurate detail the oddly short battle between InBev and Anheuser-Busch, which ended when this “American Icon” was easily taken over by a foreign corporation. Moreover, it portrays how certain power-players, behind-the-scenes, can cause a company’s collapse, even from the inside, and how this event is perhaps a mere reflection of events to come.