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This week in 1999, INSIGHTS reported the Genesee deal was going down as expected. The same folks who bought old Heileman brewery in La Crosse, Platinum Holdings, was expected to close on deal to buy Genny within 90 days. Key contingencies were ironing out labor agreements with 6 unions and "environmental issues." As expected, Platinum planned to keep Genny's Rochester brewery open, and it looked to make ethanol there too. In Genny 10Q, co added this parting shot: "During the past several years, the large national brewers have utilized a variety of inducements, incentives and contractual terms to cause their distributors to make a greater commitment to their brands, largely at the expense of the brands of smaller brewers" like Genny. This week in 2000, INSIGHTS noted trend towards Miller/Coors combined houses continued apace in big Florida mkt. In last couple of years, Tampa, Tallahassee, St. Augustine and now Jacksonville each went Miller/Coors. Latest deal at the time: Champion Brands (Miller) bought 2.1-mil-case Neal Tyler & Sons (Coors) in Jacksonville, Fla. That was Champion's 2d deal in 2 yrs; had previously picked up about 800K cases (of Coors and imports) in St. Augustine. Champion was well over 5 mil cases in Jacksonville and St. Augustine. But word was that Champion would sell off Corona brands in those 2 locations (over 250K cases) to AB distribs for over $20 per case. Since AB had over 55 share in FL, Miller had about 21 share and Coors only had 6, these M/C combo distribs make a lot of sense. Nationwide, a little more than 1/3 of Miller volume was sold thru Miller/Coors distribs.This week in 2002, Interbrew announced Hugo Powell would step down as ceo Feb 1 for John Brock, currently chief operating officer at Cadbury Schweppes. In 12-mo period, Interbrew had named a new chief executive officer, new chief operating officer (Jerry Fowden) and new chief marketing and sales officer (Brent Willis). Only Jerry had beer experience at the time. Interbrew had undergone a series of transformations, lotsa acquisitions and explosive growth under Hugo&#39;s leadership. But it'd also been a bumpy road. Co went public in Dec 2000 at 33 euros/share and was down by around 20 euros that week. When Brock's 3-yr contract ended he was succeeded by Carlos Brito.This week in 2005, after a long, drawn-out process, acting NJ Gov Codey signed franchise bill. "New law extends coverage to all suppliers and establishes a fair market value standard for brands in transfer circumstances," said NJ distrib assn exec director Bob Pinard. Bill also recognized "commercial reality" that beer distribution rights were "valuable asset" that "should not be forfeited even if there is good cause," said atty Drew Jaglom, who represented AB distribs. Distribs would get reasonable compensation even if terminated for good cause. Not everyone was happy of course. Miller dinged provisions that allowed a supplier to demand "certain share-of-mind activities at the expense of a supplier who represented less than 20%" of a distrib's sales. Miller and others also felt cut out of process by which bill was drafted and passed.This week in 2007, there was yet another megadeal in Texas to report. L&F of south TX, including Corpus Christi, had agreement to buy Desert Eagle, a ~10-mil case distrib in El Paso, which had branches in Alpine, TX and Roswell, NM, reported El Paso Times. Deal would make L&F over 20 mil cases. Following mid-07 deal for Silver Eagle to buy BudCo in San Antonio (a deal both L&F and Desert Eagle had been interested in), this meant that 3 AB TX distribs (including Silver Eagle and Ben E. Keith) would sell ~100 mil cases. Wow! Those 3 distribs alone would handle almost 70% of AB volume in its largest state. "The future of the business will be large, mega wholesalers," Desert Eagle owner Robert Brown told Times. "We either had to grow the business or sell out. In our case, we had no acquisition possibilities." BudCo had broken all records with purchase price of well over $250 mil. Desert Eagle has 76 share of mkt in El Paso. The case numbers kept growin' from there, tho Silver Eagle ownership now split with Houston under Redwood Holdings and San Antonio with Sunkey Beverage Holdings.This week in 2010, the long saga of Schenck trying to sell its big MC distrib in Orlando finally was headed towards a conclusion. Schenck had signed letter of intent to sell to Reyes Holdings, it notified employees. Schenck was on the mkt for over 2 yrs, but path cleared for it to negotiate with "qualified buyers" about a month and a half prior. And now they had a deal that was to close sometime in 1st qtr 2011. MC no longer opposed to it either, we heard. This was a big one, near 14 mil cases that would put Reyes Bev Group at about 95 mil cases. Deal closed two months later. Schenck first opened for biz back in 1954.This week in 2011, Heineken Americas prexy John Nicholson told Bloomberg that brand Heineken had some "momentum back" as its rate of decline had slowed. But HUSA also faced challenges as Bloomberg article pointed out. "There's still a lot more that AB InBev can do with Stella in the US, and that's got to be an ever-present threat to brand Heineken," said Societe Generale's Andrew Holland. Despite including upbeat quotes from Nicholson, Bloomberg closed on somewhat sour note with Santander's Anthony Bucalo sharing he was "skeptical that Heineken will show much improvement" in US, noting that "a lot of the big macro brands have about 25-year life cycles where they start to peak out and start declining." That happened to Heineken "in the middle of the last decade," according to Tony. He got last word too: "They really let Heineken go and they're paying the price for it&hellip;. They can stabilize the business, but the future of Heineken USA is in the Dos Equis brand," he concluded. Dos Equis had big growth run thru most of the 2010s but Heineken brand remains the clear #1 nowadays, tho both are trending down.

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