Price Of Beer Saved: Corona And Budweiser Merged Denied By DOJ

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Not the best news Bud will now turn their attention back to gobbling up smaller craft brewer like Goose Island. They will get the market share one way or another.

The price of beer has been saved by the Department of Justice. The DOJ filed a lawsuit stopping Anheuser-Busch InBev’s proposed $20.1 billion purchase of Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo, which would have merged Budweiser and Corona under one brewery.

The proposed $20 billion deal would have affected almost half of the $80 billion in beer sales in the United States. Anheuser-Busch Bud Light is the best-selling beer in the nation and Grupo Modelo’s Corona Extra is the best-selling import. According to the Associated Press, the Justice Department feared “the deal could lead to higher beer prices in this country because it would substantially reduce competition in the U.S. beer market, particularly in 26 metropolitan areas.”

Bill Baer, the assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ’s antitrust division, says Anheuser-Busch would certainly increase the price of beer if the proposed purchase was allowed. He cites “a pattern of behavior” in which the “big folks were working hard to get price increases and Modelo was a significant constraint” on that behavior.

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