Wicked Weed Funkatorium Invitational 2017

I don't know how multi-million dollar aquisitions work, but maybe its not something you can just hold off on announcing? They probably would not want to delay the deal for 2 months just because of backlash affecting a non-profit festival, and it doesn't seem like the kind secret that would be easy to keep. Can you imagine the backlash if they had done the deal, kept it secret, sold tickets, and then people found out?

 

The WW offerings have never been all that crazy at the event in the past. I mean, solid offerings, but nothing that people from nearby haven't had. All the other breweries were the main draw.

This. It absolutely can hurt their reputation since no one remembers the timeline for the festival and just see breweries attending after WW has said they're getting bought by ABI.

i don't think this festival means all that much to WW in the larger scheme of things. If it crashes and burns, so be it. If it still happens just with a smaller group of breweries and people are a little disappointed that not everyone is there... so be it. Maybe I'm wrong though. I was certainly on the fence about going this year (I've been every other year its been held), and this has pushed me firmly into the 'Not going' side.

 

Just have to agree to disagree. On that. No sane person will stop following the breweries who were already slated to come for holding true to their word. Especially if that's the break in their relationship.

People aren't going to stop buying or say a negative word about Side Project and etc who aren't pulling out (yet). That's a terribly silly line of thinking.

 

Yeah I have volunteered every year but I am going to have to pass on it this year.

 

They (ABInbev and Wicked Weed) aren't going to delay the announcement of a presumably 9-figure business transaction for the sake of a niche charity beer festival. Especially given that ABI is a publicly traded company.

 

If you think some people aren't going to say a negative word about X brewery still attending, you must be new to the internet.
Agree about impacting buying habits.

 

More often than not, a delay in announcing these things is usually business as usual. Keeping this kind of thing hush hush is standard--it's happened within my company three times now. We knew for 6 months one time we had been merged with a company before it went public.

Last year CCB waited until after Huna day to announce that Oskar Blues owners bought them. It was literally a day or two after. I found it a really funny topic of conversation on the road trip back to Ohio. Didn't feel miffed at all. I'm sure it was pretty strategically decided that was when they were going to announce it long, long before the festival was held.

That may be, but it is mainly the breweries who do not want to be associated with the situation, not the fans who are demanding they pull out.

I'm curious to know what were some of the rarer or hyped offerings by Wicked Weed in years past?

 

I said so no sane person. So I covered the internet wackos and trolls. It won't impact anyone who attends.

 

Hearing it was not 9 figure and even on the low end of 8 figure - time will tell when the actual amount comes out .

Announcement could have waited and it would have had zero effect on AB's value or quarterly earnings release. This deal is not a real needle mover to AB's revenues - a nice addition to their "craft" portfolio but nothing more.

 

CCB did it last year...rumors were white hot leading up to Hunahpu Day that they had been sold and a announcement would be made the day after Hunahpu Day as to not "ruin" The Festival...and that's exactly what happened..the crazy part is CCB already had the ticket money as it was sold out so an announcement would not have hurt them at all financially like it is going to hurt The WW Festival...the backlash definitely hit CCB this year as Hunahpu Day did not sell out for the first time since it became ticketed

 

Will the amount come out? I don't remember ever seeing the figure for the Devils backbone sale last year.

 

Haw River is out.

 

Hell - they already did prior to the acquisition.

 

This. It's astounding to see so many people not know where WW came from and act like they were a ground up with no help brewery.

 

Rare Barrel is out!

 

Announcement timing for acquisitions varies tremendously from transaction to transaction. Often with private transactions (where the buyer and seller are not public companies), especially those under a minimum threshold of transaction size, it is up to the discretion of the buyer/seller to determine when (and if) a transaction will be announced. Some private deals are never announced publicly. The announcement of some, as Sabtos indicated, can come many months after the fact.

That said, this was not a private deal, so there are a few elements of this transaction that presumably prompted the timing of the announcement. First, Anheuser-Busch InBev ('ABI') is a public company, which comes with its own disclosure rules when acquiring assets deemed material (you can certainly make the argument that this may not qualify as material for a multi-billion company however, but perhaps it was in light of my second point). Second, in connection with the DOJ's statement when closing its investigation of ABI's acquisition of Devils Backbone last September, the DOJ commented that they would 'carefully scrutinize any future craft acquisitions' by ABI. Finally, while I have no personal knowledge of the deal, given the rumored size of the transaction, my guess is that it likely required an HSR Filing / Pre-Merger Notification with the FTC. Note that this is required for deals that meet a size threshold regardless of whether they are private or public. As a result of the DOJ's stated scrutiny of future acquisitions, I would think that they probably filed for an early-termination notice so they would quickly know whether the deal would be allowed (this is requested in the majority of acquisitions that meet the size threshold). Since early terminations are publicly disclosed on the FTC website and many news agencies monitor these disclosures, the news would have broken anyway ahead of July 8th, as they usually only take 30 days. Given these factors, my sense is that there may have been pressure to announce the deal vs. having it leaked, especially if it were leaked after customers bought tickets to the festival, but before the festival itself took place. Honestly, it was probably the right PR move to announce this ahead of ticket purchases, especially given the likely anticipated visceral reaction by many of the brewers participating in the festival itself and potential customer disappointment. To think that Wicked Weed didn't see this coming is myopic in my opinion, but the timing of the announcement may have been out of their control on some level driven by these exogenous factors.

 

Steel String out.

 

At what point do we start saying who's left instead?

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I have some insight into these types of things and found this helpful to the discussion. The AB-WW deal is concerning but my greatest fear is when the time comes for Fireman to flip United Craft Brews LLC (which seems inevitable given how and why it exists) and it's AB sitting across the table from you.