Booze Isn't Countercyclical... Did You Hear That Blackstone, Bain and KKR?
Last week we learned that a long list of buyout firms are in the bidding for Oriental Brewery, South Korea's second largest beer maker. Meanwhile, New York-based buyout firm KPS Capital Partners has agreed to purchase Labatt USA from Anheuser-Busch InBev. We suggested the rash of interest must be countercyclical. The idea being, of course, that people turn to drinking when times get tough. But that's not the case at all. Stats guru Nate Silverman of FiveThirtyEight has concluded that booze is in fact not countercyclical. According to his analysis, sales of alcohol for off-premises consumption dropped 9.3% in the fourth quarter last year! That's 5.6 points greater than the prior largest drop, a 3.7% decline in the back half of 1991.
24 February 2009•2 mins read
