On October 20th, 2016, the “Tsinghua Students Dialogue with Board Members” was in full swing as part of the series of activities of Tsinghua SEM 2016 Advisory Board Meeting. Carolos Brito, CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev (“AB InBev”) and member of Tsinghua SEM Advisory Board, entered Tsinghua SEM classroom to interact with Tsinghua SEM Entrepreneur Fellows.

Carlos Brito, CEO, Anheuser-Busch InBev

Mr. Brito delivered a speech on “Bring People Together for A Better World”. At the beginning, Mr. Brito briefly introduced the development of AB InBev as well as his own experience. He joined this company in 1989 and so far it has become the world's largest brewer, occupying more than 30% market share of global beer industry. Last week, AB InBev has just finished its acquisition of SABMiller, after which AB InBev would possess offices in more than fifty countries and have sales in more than one hundred countries around the world.

After that Mr. Brito talked about what drives the persistent endeavor of AN InBev. In particular, he elaborated the 10 principles of the company on the aspects of dream, people and culture, including ownership, cost control, fairness etc. He addressed, “Excellent people feel that they are the owner of the company and aim to here for a long time, thus they could consider both the short-term tasks and the long-term benefit. AB InBev prefers those who join the firm with the expectation to work here for 20 even 30 years and accomplish their dreams, instead of simply decorating their resumes and leave.”

During the following dialogue on “Global Merger and Acquisition Strategies of Enterprises”, Mr. Brito discussed with Professor BAI Chong-En, Mansfield Freeman Chair Professor, Executive Associate Dean, Tsinghua SEM, and three Entrepreneur Fellow representatives (Mr. LI Hualun, Chairman of Shanghai Rosefinch Equity Investment Management; Mr. SONG Lihua, Chairman of Anhui Anke Biotechnology Group; Mr. XU Yusuo, Chairman of Shenzhen Invengo Information Technology). He shared some valuable M&A experiences of AB InBev. Firstly, it’s very important to do M&A for right reasons. There must be some strategic benefit other than just expanding the size. What’s more, the acquirer should have a good execution team and leverage all the financial resource. Then it’s also critical to establish one consolidated company, especially in culture. In addition, Mr. Brito offered some detailed suggestions to Chinese entrepreneurs concerning cross-border M&A, such as to reserve the brand name of the acquired company in the local market since the local consumers are connected to the name.

Dialogue session

In the Q&A session, Mr. Brito also conveyed his own perspective on Chinese brew market. In his opinion, entrepreneurs should not only pay attention to revenue, but also profitability. In the past years the Chinese brew market has witnessed a sharp increase, which is likely to be lowered or even stagnated due to the upward trend of employee payment. However, AB InBev has seen the opportunity of continuing increasing demand from white-collar class and concentrated on mid- and high-end product.

At the end, Tsinghua SEM Entrepreneur Fellows gave a carefully selected present to Mr. Brito and the activity accomplished successfully. (by Xiaoye Yang and Yilin Yang)