InBev

"AmBev’s talent factory, spilling out droves of highly-talented executives at full speed, was able to expatriate more than one hundred executives of all seniority levels to international outposts of the newly-created company. Carlos Brito, AB InBev’s current CEO, was one of them: he left AmBev to run Labatt for some time, and to get some international mileage under his belt, a move agreed upon with the Belgians before he took over as InBev’s CEO in Leuven."

"the trio believes their only really sustainable competitive advantage is their management style, they sought to chase growth by purchasing “mature businesses, with pulverized (and/or weak) ownership, strong, recognized brands and poor management,” where “external and internal owners could make a difference,” in the words of Marcel Telles. Acquisitions supplied top-line growth, and management turnaround supplied earnings growth, a combination that pleased ambitious employees and shareholders alike. Acquisitions enabled Antarctica—then AmBev and finally InBev—to export talented individuals to a number of M&A-created positions (the Brazilians secretly pride themselves in having “taken over” much of AB InBev’s management structure) around the globe. That is…"

"Everything pointed to the fact that AB’s board, dominated by the Third and the Fourth, would do little to get a deal with InBev done. It would disrupt their luxurious status quo and expose years of management inefficiencies to the world. An alternative course of action was to approach the board, but make it public by “leaking” copies to the press, and in the process creating an environment where it would be embarrassing not to seriously consider the offer, which was AB’s board of directors’ fiduciary duty in the first place. InBev ended up using just such a course of action."

"In March 2004, AmBev and its controlling shareholders announced a complex transaction, in which the trio, via its Braco holding company, merged its controlling stake in AmBev with a number of Belgium-based families’ stakes in Interbrew. As a result, the trio would share control in the combined company, which would itself hold controlling stakes in both AmBev[8] and Interbrew, and be called InBev[9]."

"We basically think that ideal companies are the ones that are publicly traded, but that also have shareholders working for them, because they are surely interested in the really long-term, and in perpetuating the business. I think that’s the ideal balance for a good, long-lasting company. I’ve been myself a part of many an American company’s board of directors where nobody’s got more than 2%, or 3% of the stock. Results were ok, but in general executives start to run the show, and that doesn’t seem healthy, because it generates an environment of excessive stock option issuance, compensation, and attention to quarterly earnings. In sum, my ideal company is not one that lacks a clear owner. I prefer InBev’s current model, where several shareholders take part in the company’s management, ensuring really long-term focus, and also the public shareholders, executives, and employees, who’ve got generous stock purchasing packages."