Dethroning the King (59 page)

If that were the case, the media conjectured, and Martin had overdosed on illegal substances under The Fourth's own roof, what did that mean for him? Was he involved in her death or, worse, somehow responsible? Would he be formally charged? And if he weren't charged, would it indicate that he was truly innocent or that the local police were just unable or unwilling to nail him? Discrepancies between various police reports perked up some people's ears, but it was never clear that the inaccuracies stemmed from anything more than shoddy investigative work.

On February 9, the St. Louis County medical examiner released a statement that said Martin died of an accidental overdose of the painkiller Oxycodone. She also had enough cocaine in her system to have killed her independently. The coroner turned the results over to the prosecutor's office, and the public breathlessly awaited word on whether The Fourth would be charged with manslaughter.

The prosecutor hit a dead end, however, while investigating whether The Fourth had given Martin the drugs. The Fourth had declined to cooperate with the investigation after making his initial statement, and while neither he nor Martin had a prescription for Oxycodone, it wasn't clear where the painkillers or cocaine had come from. The coroner, furthermore, found a “chronic perforation” of the distal septum of Martin's nose that suggested she was a frequent cocaine user. The evidence pointed toward a likelihood that she took the drugs voluntarily and overdosed, whether by accident or on purpose.

As August IV walked away from the second death of a young woman in his presence, one question became unavoidable. Was he the luckiest guy on the planet, blessed with gobs of money and some sort of impenetrable armor that shielded him from consequences? Or was he disastrously, tragically
un
lucky—a hapless playboy with bad judgment and terrible timing?

The Fourth, who knew of Martin's affinity for drugs and her history of depression, was again holding court with people who engaged in unhealthy pursuits—and putting his own physical and emotional health at risk in the process. He had undergone a round of rehab in early 2010 after the takeover, and some people in his extended circle say he had checked in more than once. In the wake of Martin's death, he was left balancing, legally and emotionally, on an even wobblier stool.

Martin's ex-husband filed a wrongful death suit against The Fourth on behalf of her eight-year-old son, after a race to the courthouse between him and her relatives. The Fourth's attempt to settle the suit for $1.5 million was waylaid in court as Martin's mother and estranged father angled for the right to participate in the proceedings and to sue for significantly higher amounts.

When Anheuser-Busch InBev confirmed in March 2011 that The Fourth would leave the board of directors when his term expired in April for “personal and health” reasons, it came as no surprise. The Fourth maintained a good relationship with the Brazilians, who wanted to see him get healthy, and the move relieved the board's other members of the possibility of having to watch their colleague get skewered in court.

But it also left no one with Busch blood—and no one with ties to St. Louis—as a director of the merged global giant. The Busch era at Anheuser-Busch officially ended in April 2011, under a dark cloud of suspicion and scandal.

Despite his personal demons, The Fourth remained remarkably self-aware and remorseful about the heartache he had caused at points in his life. He was desperate for a way to help others learn from his mistakes. By the third anniversary of InBev's hostile bid, he was contemplating launching a new brewery once his consulting contract with InBev expired, in much the same way that some of his former underlings had done in and around St. Louis.

The Fourth told the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
not long after Martin's death that he had started talking again with his father, who remained largely sheltered within the privacy of his St. Louis farm. The two had even reaffirmed their love for each other, The Fourth said, reciting an exchange of “I love you's” that sounded as if they had been pulled from a Budweiser beer ad script. It didn't sound plausible to people who knew the two men well, and there were reasons to believe that the heartfelt expression of emotions represented wishful thinking on The Fourth's part more than they reflected reality. He had called his father for advice on how to handle his mounting legal problems, but their frank, businesslike exchange hadn't exactly brought the relationship to a more sophisticated level. The Third's most consistent form of communication with his son continued to be the greeting cards he sent on his birthday and major holidays.

Rumors abounded in St. Louis that The Third had lost his edge—that he was flying less frequently and perhaps even suffering from memory loss. Even before the takeover, some of his interactions with other members of the board had suggested that his memory was weakening. Given his age, none of that would have been surprising, had it not been for the air of vigor and invincibility he had always exuded.

By mid-2011, two and a half years after the deal closed, InBev had completed most of its formal moves to meld the two companies together. But dissatisfaction persisted among the company's rank and file, particularly when it came to employees of the old Anheuser-Busch. Some contended that the Brazilians were pushing their scrimp-and-save agenda too hard and hurting employees' levels of engagement.

“The cost-cutting just went bananas,” said one former executive. Executives on one floor at headquarters discovered that their office mini-fridges were being secretly unplugged at night to save electricity, which soaked their carpets and spoiled their food.

“They fired the janitorial service that used to take out the trash, so everyone had to take out their own trash,” the former executive said. “You had to grab your little trash can, run it over to the kitchen area, and dump it yourself. Not a big deal, because you're running 20 yards, but symbolically, it was a big deal.”

Thanks in part to those trash can runs, InBev's team was expected to rack up as much as $2.5 billion in merger-related cost savings, a whopping $1 billion more than initially targeted. But the company's tectonic cultural shift continues to be tough to digest. Employees who were once encouraged to think creatively in pursuit of big ideas now feel like they're working for Big Brother.

On a national level, InBev's team of Brazilian operators started migrating upmarket in response to continuing consumer trends, raising beer prices and funneling less energy into selling the company's cheaper brands. The company announced in March 2011 that it would buy beloved Chicago craft brewer Goose Island, provoking an outcry from loyal Chicagoans who felt Goose Island sold out to a soul-sucking behemoth in much the same way Anheuser-Busch surrendered itself to InBev.

If the St. Louis market is any gauge of drinkers' loyalty to independent brands, Goose Island's sales in Chicago may suffer at least a few hiccups. When someone hollers for a beer in St. Louis these days, there's no longer a guarantee he'll be tossed a Bud or Bud Light.

“You don't see the buzz around Anheuser-Busch products like you did in the past,” said Chris Dorr, owner of the most popular bar outside St. Louis's Busch Stadium. “They're a very important player because they're still the 800-pound gorilla. But I guess they're softening around the edges.”

People with ties to the old Anheuser-Busch cringe at how the takeover controversy and overdose scandal are playing out in public. “It's sad that the potential legacy of all of the good things we did, building and creating brands, is being cast in a different light,” said a former employee. “I hope it doesn't get the pall of, like, an Enron. I'm sure there were really good, smart people at Enron who took Enron off their resume even though they had nothing to do with why it failed.”

The manner in which the takeover unfolded has left some people close to Anheuser-Busch mulling one critical—and perhaps unavoidable—question: Did The Third recognize that the company's days as an independent brewer were limited, and engineer things so that it would be sold on his son's watch rather than his? August III began supporting The Fourth's CEO candidacy once Anheuser's glory days ended; he blocked his son's efforts to resurrect the company after he became chief; and then, once Anheuser was firmly established as a takeover target, he steered it toward InBev. He had hundreds of millions of dollars personally at stake.

“At some level, The Fourth got totally thrown in front of the bus,” said Buddy Reisinger. “Pat and August are not stupid. At some level, they probably knew. When The Fourth came in, even before this happened, I thought, ‘These guys know there are no more levers to pull. This guy—his best-case scenario is they tread water.' I said, ‘August IV cannot pull a rabbit out of a hat. It's not possible. There's not going to be another Bud Light. What's the guy going to do?' ”

“He took the legs out from under his own son,” said a former ad agency executive.

Not everyone, however, is convinced that The Third could stomach the thought of losing Anheuser-Busch to a foreign competitor, no matter who was in charge. Crediting him with the foresight he would have needed to see InBev coming years in advance might also be a stretch.

“I don't think that's viable at all, because knowing him, there's no way he would ever surrender,” Bob Lachky said. “His personality and his drive and every bit of his wiring [are] based on winning. I don't think there's a way he would ever drop a hot potato and then scream when it was on the way down.”

“Hindsight makes The Third look worse than he is,” said one company advisor.

He certainly didn't make it easy for his son to succeed, however, which suggests the truth may lie somewhere in between. While he repeatedly dodged opportunities at global expansion, his intentions there weren't nefarious. It was his constant effort to dilute his son's authority that raises eyebrows and prompts other former executives to wonder whether The Fourth ever really had a shot at changing the course of Anheuser-Busch's history.

“I think it would have been very, very hard, because so many board members were vestiges of his father's group,” an Anheuser insider said. “The only way he would have gotten more credibility is if the performance had been stronger. And the performance was just okay. So he wasn't doing things fast enough to build up his own credibility, and his father just seemed to take everything he wanted to do and talk about how stupid it was.”

“If you had given him, say, five years as CEO, you could say, ‘Well, the fate of the company was literally determined by the last five years of his leadership,' ” said General Henry Hugh Shelton. “But time ran out on us.”

He added, “The InBev offer came in before very much of the stuff he had working really started to pay dividends.”

The Fourth had been head of the U.S. brewing business for several years before becoming CEO, however—it wasn't as if he parachuted straight into the CEO's spot. He had been given a good chunk of time to try to revive Budweiser's flagging market share, and his efforts had been largely fruitless.

Still, even people on InBev's side of the fence find it hard to peg too much blame on August IV. “You know honestly, the guy wasn't there long enough,” acknowledged one InBev advisor. “If anything, the place was probably starting to turn around.”

The Fourth opened a window into his tortured psyche in several e-mails he sent to Harry Schuhmacher during and after the takeover battle. Some were coherent; others weren't. Each suggested that he was wallowing in despair and felt he had let everyone down. He deeply regretted vowing to his distributors that the company wouldn't be sold on his watch. If he had known that his father and the board would turn against him and Modelo at the 11th hour, he wouldn't have opened his mouth.