Beer me
Dos cervezas por favor
Good morning, pilsner enjoyers. This is your Stock Market Rundown for July 6th, 2023. Thanks for being here with me. Let’s dig in:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: GLOBAL BREWSKIS 🍺
Who’d have thought a beer manufactured in Mexico would become America’s bestselling beer? Earlier this year Modelo Especial unseated Bud Light in an upset to rival Buster Douglas defeating Mike Tyson.
So, who owns the brand that now wears the crown? As we used to say on Facebook, it’s complicated.
Grupo Modelo, founded in 1925, actually brews Modelo beers. They operate seven brewing plants in Mexico with a total capacity of 60 million hectolitres of beer—enough to fill 2,400 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Taking a reverse dive into a deep end full of Carlsberg sounds fun.
AB InBev are the bros who own Budweiser, plus enough other beer brands to fill many a garage fridge—from Michelob in the US, to Brahma in India, to Harbin in China. If a country has drunk guys downing lagers, AB InBev is making a buck off them.
Among their properties? Grupo Modelo. Yep, the beer business is as incestuous as the plot of Game of Thrones. But when AB InBev tried to consolidate all the operations under the corporate parent, US competition authorities said “that’s a no from us, dawg.”
Forced by the feds to dispose of some assets, they gave up US distribution of Modelo to a competitor: Constellation Brands (STZ-NYSE). Constellation’s first-quarter earnings boasted an uplift in shipments. They also enjoyed a successful launch for their new light beer, Modelo Oro, which I plan to sample ASAP as, uh, research.
With the population aging, light beers are a frothy segment. Folks over 50 want to avoid sporting a beer belly while frolicking in the backyard above-ground pool. And light beers let you pickle your liver… responsibly.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
The CEO of AirBNB has a couple of houses he owns up on the platform. Might rent one out for my next bridge tournament with the girls. Hopefully Irma doesn’t get turnt on sherry and punch the wall when she loses… again.
I’m sure this’ll end well: A bunch of ETF providers are launching Bitcoin ETFs so normies who don’t know a ledger from a lightbulb can YOLO into crypto.
Chicken made from animal cells in a lab was served at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Personally, if I were paying $800 for the chef’s tasting menu, I’d not only want real beef, I’d want to know the cow’s name.
Median pay for CEOs of S&P 500 companies was $14.5 million last year. Understandable; private jets don’t fuel themselves.
Not romantic: a man was arrested for snooping on his investment-banker girlfriend’s computer and insider-trading stocks of companies whose transactions she was working on. She has now logged out of the relationship.
That’s it for today, see you bright and early tomorrow. Yours in capitalism, The Axe