Why $20 Billion Can’t Save The Family That Founded Budweiser: The Busch Dynasty

Описание: The Busch family built Budweiser into America's beer empire worth fifty-two billion dollars, then lost control through generational betrayals, diluted ownership, and family warfare that ended one hundred fifty-six years of dynasty when InBev acquired Anheuser-Busch in two thousand eight.

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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Introduction
1:13 Chapter 1: The $20 Billion Fortune
4:33 Chapter 2: The German Immigrant
7:48 Chapter 3: Surviving Prohibition
11:22 Chapter 4: The First Betrayal
14:44 Chapter 5: The $52 Billion Betrayal
18:34 Chapter 6: The Brand They Built

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The Busch family ranks fifteenth among America's richest dynasties with an estimated twenty billion dollars shared among roughly thirty heirs, stemming from the two thousand eight sale of Anheuser-Busch to InBev for fifty-two billion dollars after the family owned less than one percent of company stock.

August Anheuser Busch III, now eighty-eight years old, maintains an estimated personal net worth between 152 and 400 million dollars, holding roughly 1.44 million shares of AB InBev worth over 101 million dollars in a company no longer bearing his family's operational fingerprint.

Adolphus Busch arrived in St. Louis in eighteen fifty-seven as the youngest of twenty-one children from a German family that sold brewery supplies, marrying Eberhard Anheuser's daughter Lilly in eighteen sixty-one before joining his father-in-law's struggling Bavarian Brewery.

In eighteen seventy-six, working with St. Louis bottler Carl Conrad, Anheuser-Busch developed a lighter lager and named it Budweiser, a brand that would dominate American beer culture for the next 150 years before the family lost control of it.

Adolphus died October tenth, nineteen thirteen, leaving behind thirteen children and an empire that survived Prohibition by selling ice cream, yeast, and beer ingredients with labels warning "Do not add the yeast to the other ingredients or risk fermentation."

On February thirteenth, nineteen thirty-four, August Busch Sr. walked into a room at the Grant's Farm mansion, penned a brief note to his wife "Goodbye precious mommie," and took his own life with a pearl-handled revolver.

August "Gussie" Busch Jr. transformed the company into the world's largest brewer by nineteen fifty-seven, purchased the St. Louis Cardinals in nineteen fifty-three for 3.75 million dollars, and married four times while fathering eleven children.

In May nineteen seventy-five, August III executed a boardroom coup that removed his own father Gussie as CEO and chairman after nearly thirty years of leadership, forcing him to publicly represent the departure as voluntary.

In November nineteen eighty-three, nineteen-year-old August IV was driving his black Corvette when it overturned on Dead Man's Curve near Tucson, killing passenger Michele Frederick, but authorities declined charges after seven months citing insufficient evidence.

August IV finally became CEO in December two thousand six as the fifth-generation family member and sixth Busch to hold the title, but had less than two years before InBev launched an unsolicited hostile bid in June two thousand eight.

On July thirteenth, two thousand eight, Anheuser-Busch surrendered at seventy dollars per share totaling fifty-two billion dollars, with press reports indicating August III had secretly engineered the sale, deliberately blindsiding his own son who publicly opposed the deal.

In April two thousand twenty-three, Bud Light sent a commemorative can to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, sparking a conservative boycott that erased twenty-seven billion dollars from market value and cost an estimated 1.4 billion dollars in U.S. sales.

Modelo Especial overtook Bud Light as America's best-selling beer in May two thousand twenty-three, ending a reign of over two decades, with Michelob Ultra passing it by September two thousand twenty-five to push Bud Light to third place.