The beverage behemoth seeking to engineer a merger that will give it control of 1 out of every 3 beers sold in the world has donated $10,000 to the Hillary Clinton campaign in its only listed contribution to a presidential candidate, documents show.
InBev, owners of Anheuser-Busch, which brews Budweiser beer, has announced its intentions to merge with SABMiller, brewers of Lite Beer and other Miller Beer brands, in a $104 billion deal.
"The deal will create a brewer selling one of every three beers worldwide, with brands like Budweiser, Stella Artois, Grolsch, Miller, Corona and Peroni under its umbrella,"
Newsweek reports.
The merger will require regulatory approval from the Justice Department.
The OpenSecrets website reports InBev, through its Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. Political Action Committee, has donated money to only one presidential campaign in the 2016 election cycle, according to FEC data through Sept. 28.
Hillary Clinton is
listed as receiving $10,000 from the corporate giant.
In addition, the Clinton Foundation has received donations from Anheuser-Busch in the $1 million to $5 million range, according to an examination conducted by
Nonprofit Quarterly.
Clinton was the target of attacks from fellow candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders during the first Democrat debate Oct. 13 for her allegedly cozy ties to Wall Street.
She claimed she tried to put a halt to the rampant financial speculation that caused a severe economic downturn in 2008.
"I represented Wall Street as a senator from New York, and I went to Wall Street in December of 2007 before the big crash that we had, and I basically said, 'Cut it out,'"Clinton said during the debate,
The Wall Street Journal reports.
"Congress does not regulate Wall Street. Wall Street regulates Congress," replied Sanders.
"Saying ‘please do the right thing’ is kind of naïve," he added.
A crucial factor in the big beer merger is distribution. Though craft beers are very popular in the United States today, they are dependent on the bigger companies to get their product to market, as the larger corporations control the distributorships.
"A combined AB InBev/SABMiller would have a massive worldwide distribution network — and access to distribution is an essential part of success in the beer world,"
Fortune reports.
"The problem with distribution rights, at least in the U.S., is once sold, they can’t be renegotiated or taken back. And if a distributor opts to downplay one beer (say, a craft brewer’s product) in favor of another (for instance, an offering made by the macro company that owns the distributor), there’s not much the smaller brewer can do about it."