Marlboro company sells $2.2 billion interest in owner of Bud Light
Altria Group, the company behind Marlboro cigarettes, has announced plans to sell more than $2.2 billion worth of stock in AB InBev, the company behind the Stella Artois and Bud Light beer brands.
Altria will sell 35 million shares of AB InBev as a result of the transaction.
With a market value of around $12.7 billion, the tobacco giant presently controls almost 10% of the largest brewer in the world.
Following a US boycott due to the company’s collaboration with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, Bud Light sales have suffered.
The sale is «an opportunistic transaction that realises a portion of the substantial return on our long-term investment,» according to a statement released by Billy Gifford, CEO of Altria.
When Bud Light sent Ms. Mulvaney a personalized beer can for an internet post, the company received backlash.
Within a few weeks, industry observers noted that Bud Light had been displaced as the most popular beer in the US by Modelo, which was distributed by a competitor company, and that competitors like Coors Light and Miller Light were rapidly catching up.
A lot of conservatives criticized the brand for becoming «woke» when Ms. Mulvaney shared a social media post advertising the beer with her own personalized can.
Informally used in the US, «woke» refers to being aware of injustice and prejudice in general, and racism and sexism in particular. The right frequently uses it to disparage left-leaning opinions on anything from climate change to support for
