DENVER -- Contrary to earlier expectations, Molson Coors and SABMiller are expected to locate the headquarters of their new joint brewing venture in a locale other than Denver or Milwaukee, a top Molson Coors executive told The Rocky Mountain News.
Molson Coors Vice Chairman Pete Coors told the newspaper that it was "not likely" the MillerCoors headquarters would be in either of those cities. Sources have told the paper in recent weeks that the joint venture partners were strongly mulling Chicago or Dallas.
Denver had been given the inside track, said the report. Pete Coors and Leo [image-nocss] Kiely—the expected chairman and CEO, respectively, of the new U.S. joint venture—both hail from Colorado. Kiely is CEO of Denver- and Montreal-based Molson Coors, parent of Coors Brewing. London-based SABMiller's Miller Brewing unit is based in Milwaukee.
"There's a fairly strong sense a neutral site would be important," said Coors. "If you pick one city over another, people in the other city will say, 'They're running the deal.' I don't think that's particularly healthy."
Naming specific cities is "totally speculative," Coors added, noting a decision has not been made. "You can talk about Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Atlanta, New York, Boston—there's a lot of options available to us. I don't know where it's going to end up."
"There's going to be a continued huge presence in Colorado and Milwaukee," Coors said. "You just don't give up that legacy that both companies have in their respective communities."
Miller Brewing Co. said, however, that Milwaukee has not been ruled out as a potential headquarters for a joint venture, reported The Business Journal.
"At this stage, no decision has been made about the joint venture headquarters location and no cities have been ruled out," Miller management said in a statement cited by the paper. "In fact, the selection process has not even begun since there are a number of steps that need to happen first like determining which functions might be best located together in a central headquarters and which functions would operate effectively in existing locations."
Click herefor details on the joint venture.
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