MillerCoors will remain much the same following an ownership change as part of a massive brewing merger.
The Chicago-based joint venture of Molson Coors and SABMiller has more than 1,200 employees and brews about 10 million barrels of its beer annually in Milwaukee’s Miller Valley. It also brews Leinenkugel’s and specialty beer at its 10th Street Brewery in Milwaukee.
Brussels-based Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, is seeking approval to buy London-based megabrewer SABMiller for more than $100 billion. To help win regulatory approval, SABMiller has agreed to sell its 58 percent stake in the joint venture to Denver-based Molson Coors for $12 billion. MillerCoors expects the deal to be completed in the second half of the year.
In an email to MillerCoors employees today, chief executive officer Gavin Hattersley said MillerCoors will keep its name and its Chicago headquarters in the planned integration with Molson Coors.
Molson Coors will also keep its headquarters in place in Denver. The headquarters decisions were made as a result of thorough cost and benefits analysis, Hattersley said in his message.
His email said, in part: “The name reflects our proud heritage here in the U.S. and has strong recognition and brand equity with our customers. As such, we will be ‘MillerCoors, a Molson Coors company.’ This is consistent with other Molson Coors businesses, where they lead with the established brand name in that market.
“We remain confident we will achieve the synergy targets we announced in November, largely from opportunities within our combined procurement, supply chain and shared services operations.
“We’ll keep you updated as integration planning continues. In the meantime, it’s critical that we all stay fully focused on delivering our 2016 plan. That’s job number one. Thanks for all you’re doing to help us get to growth.”
