Is this the writing on the wall? In mid May 2012 the activist investor Ralph Whitworth disclosed that his hedge fund Relational Investors has bought a USD 600 million position in PepsiCo Inc, amid talk that the company should separate its beverage business from its faster-growing snacks assets.

Altria, Diageo, Mondelez – seems like companies these days are given weird, strange, suggestive or just plain bad names. In preparation for the eventual split, scheduled some time later this year, the shareholders of Kraft Foods on 23 May 2012 voted to change the name of the company to Mondelez International.

While AmBev, the Brazilian unit of AB-InBev, managed to increase its sales volume of beer by 4 percent in the first quarter (the total market was up too), Schincariol saw volumes decline 5.5 percent.

The deal is done, and the reviews are coming in on AB-InBev’s takeover of the Dominican Republic’s national brewer CND. Market observers agree on two things: the deal is clever but it comes with a high price tag.

The New York Times newspaper has been on the warpath against AB-InBev ever since February 2012 when the Oglala Sioux filed a USD 500 million federal lawsuit against several large brewers, including Anheuser-Busch (A-B) and Miller Brewing, local beer distributors, and the four Whiteclay beer shops, which sold the equivalent of 4.3 million cans of beer last year. The suit accuses the alcohol businesses of encouraging the illegal possession, transport and consumption of alcohol on the Indian reservation, where alcohol is banned.

Contrary to many pundits, Germain Hansmaennel and I have always maintained that AB-InBev will struggle to buy SABMiller. In our humble opinion AB-InBev would be better off acquiring PepsiCo’s beverage business or more U.S. distributors. To our delight this was confirmed by Harry Schuhmacher, one of the most astute U.S. beverage market observers. Here’s what he wrote on 27 April 2012:

Thanks to AmBev's deeper pockets, the Brazilian unit of AB-InBev managed to pull ahead of Heineken in the race for Cerveceria Nacional Dominicana (CND). On 16 April 2012 the deal was announced after weeks of the rumour mill spinning wildly out of control.

Neither AB-InBev nor Heineken has confirmed it, but a persistent rumour in the Caribbean has it that the two brewers are in a USD 1.5 billion race to buy the Dominican Republic’s biggest brewer Cerveceria Nacional Dominicana (CND).

After three years of straight volume declines, AB-InBev thinks it’s got a plan. As the President of North American operations, the Brazilian-born Luiz Edmond, told the Wall Street Journal on 29 March 2012, the brewer will produce more beers this year, while leaning on its distributors not to carry the competition’s beers.

U.S. Craft brewers saw volume (by craft brewers represent total taxable production) rise 13 percent, with a 15 percent increase in retail sales from 2010 to 2011, representing a total barrel increase of 1.3 million.