Anheuser-Busch InBev

To buy SABMiller, AB InBev took on a record $75 billion loan and sold $46 billion of bonds in the largest corporate offering of its day. The 'growth hangover' narrative says the debt broke the company. The debt is the one part that's working.

Bud Light's 2023 collapse looks like a culture-war accident. It was really a stress test: a company carrying $78 billion in roll-up debt had no slack to lose a single SKU, and U.S. EBITDA fell 28% in the first half of 2023.

In 2023 a single Instagram post triggered a boycott that knocked Bud Light from America's #1 beer — and by mid-2024 it had fallen to #3. The real damage wasn't the post — it was a non-apology that satisfied no one. By early 2024 — less than a year after the boycott began — sales were still roughly 30% below year-ago levels.

A single commemorative can to Dylan Mulvaney triggered the boycott. But AB InBev's $1.4 billion North American wound in 2023 wasn't caused by the can — it was caused by a CEO statement that refused to defend the partnership, the boycott, or anyone at all.

The world's biggest brewer's beer volumes have fallen three years running - down 2.3%, 1.9%, then 2.6%. Yet FY2024 revenue per hectoliter rose 4.3% and FY2025 EBITDA margin expanded to 35.8%. Premiumization is real - but it has a ceiling, and China just found it.