AB-InBev’s Brito dismisses rumour that he will step down

Belgium | Is Mr Brito doing the Donald thing? Talking to Reuters on 29 October 2020, Mr Brito dismissed a rumour about his imminent departure, saying that he expects to be leading the world’s largest brewer “for many quarters to come”.

In September, the Financial Times newspaper reported that AB-InBev had started looking for a replacement for its CEO, and that Mr Brito was involved in the process. The detailed article not only claimed that Mr Brito planned to step down at some point next year, it also mentioned which company had been hired to do the executive search. This led to speculation that the leak must have been from high up in AB-InBev, as had been the leak in January this year, which said that AB-InBev’s Chief Financial Officer, Felipe Dutra, would resign – which he actually did the following month.   

Both times, AB-InBev refrained from commenting on the rumour. Now, Mr Brito brushed it all off, saying that AB-InBev did look into “succession planning” every year, and had merely stepped up its efforts in light of the coronavirus crisis. According to Mr Brito, this was normal “contingency planning”, in case top executives fell ill and were laid up for a month or more in hospital with covid-19.

What could this all mean? As AB-InBev’s Chairman, Martin Barrington, has so far refrained from publicly supporting Mr Brito, we may assume that the board is of two minds over AB-InBev’s future strategy and Mr Brito’s part in it.  

On 29 October, AB-InBev reported a drop in third-quarter profit and scrapped its interim dividend after a shift to off-premise consumption pushed up its costs.