When the union between InBev and AB was announced, analysts prophesied - here comes culture shock. But that's not what happened. There was, let's say, a culture massacre. Brito and Edmond adopted the Machiavellian maxim according to which it is best to do all the damage at once. Weeks after concluding the deal, 1400 employees were laid off and 480 of the company's 1200 BlackBerries were taken back. One beautiful day, the executives arrived at 1 Busch Place and noticed that their luxurious offices were being demolished by sledgehammers. "It looked like they had thrown a bomb on the 9th floor," says a top executive at Anheuser-Busch. On March 4, the company released the results for its first full year at the helm of AB. According to analysts heard by EXAME, the company announced that Brito and Edmond cut more than 1 billion dollars in costs at AB last year - more than promised on the day of acquisition. This performance can be explained by the size of the reward awaiting the Brazilians should they be able to make the purchase of Anheuser-Busch work. AB InBev shareholders offered a major incentive for the executives to reduce the company's indebtedness to levels considered normal: a package of 28.4 million in stock options for the 40 executives at the top. They have until 2013 to reach the goals. If they fail, they don't get a penny. If they succeed, things will be very different indeed. According to calculations by Stifel Nicolaus, an analysis company, the 40 employees will share nearly 1 billion dollars if ABInBev's market value remains at current levels. However, since this award will be paid in stock, the value could multiply. If the stock doubles in value over coming years (something considered plausible by analysts), the package could exceed 2 billion dollars. In this optimistic scenario, Brito alone would take options evaluated at more than 200 million dollars. If the envious reader has already begun to cheer against them, here is some bad news: "If they maintain the current pace, they could reach the goals at the end of next year, two years before their deadline," says Trevor Stirling, analyst at Sanford Bernstein. Read the full article here: http://thebrazilianeconomy.com/american_management_by_brazilians.php