Publicly Traded Beers

Although the majority of craft breweries remain privately held, nearly all of the biggest breweries are publicly traded. Listing companies on public exchanges means that the public can participate in the profits of the company, but it also means several facts about their finances are now available for public scrutiny. If a company makes an acquisition, a bet on a new technology, or a restructuring, the public can now find out about it through financial disclosures.

Corporate ownership structures can get very complicated once they become public. Just because they are listed on a stock exchange does not mean that they don’t have significant ownership stakes that are still privately held. In addition, mergers between public companies can complicate things further. For instance, the South American company AmBev is listed on the Brazilian and New York Stock exchanges, but it is majority owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, which is separately listed on the Euronext Brussels index.