Former Anheuser-Busch Executive Anson Frericks has called Bill Gates’s nearly $100 million investment into Bud Light stock a mistake.
Gates acquired 1.7 million shares of Anheuser-Bush Inbev through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation trust during the second quarter of 2023, Breitbart News reported.
Frericks pointed out how the tech tycoon already invested $900 million into one of Anheuser-Bush Inbev’s largest rivals, Heineken, and since the investment, the stock has been down ten percent, Fox News Digital reported.
“So if I was looking for advice on investing in software companies, tech companies, I might go to Bill Gates,” Frericks said on Cavuto: Coast to Coast. “But if you’re looking at the beer industry, he doesn’t have a great track record of investing in winners at this point.”
Frericks also pointed out how it probably would not resonate with the average beer drinker that Bill Gates acquired nearly $100 million in stock with Bud Light.
“For the company’s sake, they’d probably be better off [with] maybe somebody who is more of, kind of the everyman type of person, maybe like a Rob Gronkowski or somebody like that was investing into Anheuser-Busch, not necessarily somebody like Bill Gates,” Frericks said.
Bud Light used to be the best-selling beer in America until the brand partnered up with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, a man living as a woman.
Transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, a man living as a woman, showcasing his personalized Bud Light can in April 2023. (Instagram/Dylan Mulvaney)
Beer Business Daily publisher Harry Schuhmacher said the beer giant has permanently lost customers.
“You see Bud Light still just stubbornly down around 30% in volume compared to last year, which is where it’s been since May or June,” Schuhmacher stated. “That tells me that this is quasi-permanent, meaning those consumers are just lost forever.”
Since August, Bud Light’s sales have been down around 26.9 percent, according to Bump Williams Consulting.
Frericks said by partnering with Mulvaney, the beer giant showed it was more concerned with embracing the needs of stakeholders than its shareholders.
“There’s one camp that says that Anheuser-Busch, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders and to take a look at just providing great products and services for their shareholders,” Frericks said. “That’s the camp that I am in.”