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It sure looks like it might happen...but you can take this to the bank: inBev will not buy Budweiser (BUD). Shareholders would probably be silly not to take $65 per share for BUD, but I suspect that there will be a tremendous amount of outrage if a foreign company was to purchase an American icon like this. There are few companies out there that are more "American" than Budweiser. In order to pull something like this off, inBev would probably have to spin it as a merger of equals along the lines of the "merger of equals" that happened when Mercedes-Benz took over Chrysler years ago. Even so, I suspect that the core Budweiser purchaser has a very "Buy American" mindset. A sale of the company could alienate BUD's core customer and cause irreparable damage to the company's brand equity.

I've learned that nothing is impossible in this world, but what fun is it if you don't have an opinion? So write this down, BUD will never, ever be taken over by inBev. I like Budweiser. I often drink Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, or Bud Select, but I plan on clearing space in my CAPS portfolio today to short BUD. It is currently trading at almost 20 times earnings, when its traditional multiple is more like 15. When this deal falls apart, the buyout premium will evaporate and BUD will drift back towards its normal historical multiple.

Deej