"I love it when a plan comes together." - Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith
A lot has been made about General Bucha's prior job performance. It's had zero predictive impact on the meteoric stock price thus far.
General Bucha quote from first-ever CC for $nBEV (then $ABRW) - "I never do anything small, and we used to have a saying at AB InBev, that it is as much work to do something, as it is to do something huge - so you might as well go big."
He's nothing if he's not ambitious, but it's not blind ambition.
Big wins at Kraft, Coke, and InBEV speak for themselves. On the opposite side of the ledger, big losses at Cott’s and ECiG. InBEV, Cott’s, and ECiG all had the same game plan of growth by acquisition. Cott’s failure is attributed to the company culture. BDW was an outsider brought in to shake things up. He shook them up too much. Then the Great Recession hit. That’s all she wrote. ECiG was about too much leverage, specifically convertible debt. Then the government started regulating and the entire industry took a huge hit.
Now, juxtapose those with present-day $nBEV. Same growth by acquisition model but also lots of talk of culture, getting the “right shareholders”, and being debt-free.
Company culture is emphasized on each, and every, conference call. The most recent conference call had 2 Millennials talking about their section of the company. I can't remember ever hearing something like that on any other company's CC. This sure sounds like more than lip service to me. Culture was the “Achilles Heel” at Cott’s. It’s been addressed this go around.
When we uplisted, a significant discount was given to the financiers, which isn’t unusual but the way it happened was. And it happened despite being 4x over-subscribed. Why? The goal of the uplist, IMO, wasn’t only about raising capital. It was about raising capital and getting the “right kind of shareholders". Convertible debt was fatal to the ECiG stock: 99.9% loss. $nBEV has zero convertible debt, and de minimus overall debt, and the only ones who have been selling off despite the recent strong run-up has been retail, as well as Neil and Julie, who sold modest percentages of their long-held positions. This past mistake appears to have been mitigated as well.
This wasn't an accident. Snippets of the master plan have been communicated along the way. They appear to be hitting all their milestones, and ahead of schedule. Ultimately, I think we're gonna fly or die on the success of the medical products, but who can argue against the plan coming together so far?
