Ran across this little tidbit that I found interesting as there's speculation of a behemoth, at least among the financial weenies: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=167492 I'm sure there would be some anti-trust concerns in the USA, but as internationally owned conglomerates, I'm not sure it would make any difference should this actually happen.
I drew up a quick schematic of the brewery and bottling line to illustrate the economies of scale that could be achieved by such a merger. See figure 1 Figure 1 | American adjunct lager | | | / \ / | | \ / /| |\ \ / / | | \ \ Bud Coors Miller
Most industry analysts assume that AB-I would immediately spin-off SABMiller's half of MillerCoors to get around US anti-trust regulators- the most likely purchaser being the other half-owner, MolsonCoors. (No word if MC agrees.) After all, AB-I had to get rid of Labatt USA which had less than 1% of the US market (altho' it was a particularly strong A-B competitor in NY and other border states) and the new owner NAB had to also find another brewery in Canada to make it for the US market.
