# Molson Coors **Molson Coors Beverage Company** (NYSE: TAP) is the modern corporate successor to the Coors brewing fortune. It was formed in **February 2005** when Canada's Molson merged with Colorado's [[Adolph Coors Brewing Company]]. It is the institutional home of the brand the [[Coors Family]] turned into a political symbol. ## How it got its size - **2008:** formed the [[MillerCoors]] U.S. joint venture with SABMiller (SABMiller 58%, Molson Coors 42%). - **2016:** after AB InBev bought SABMiller, Molson Coors paid **about $12 billion** for SABMiller's 58% of MillerCoors (closed Oct 11, 2016). That gave it full control of Miller and Coors in the U.S. and the global Miller brand rights. - **2019–20:** renamed Molson Coors Beverage Company (announced October 2019) as it moved into non-beer drinks. In January 2025 it bought an **8.5% stake in Fever-Tree** for about $88 million, with exclusive U.S. distribution rights. ## Who controls it The company has dual-class shares, and the voting **Class A** shares are held by the Molson family's Pentland holding company and the **Coors family trust**. Its FY2025 10-K names both as controlling holders. **David Coors** chairs the board. Gavin Hattersley retired as CEO, and **Rahul Goyal**, previously chief strategy officer, took over on **Oct 1, 2025**. ## The culture-war ledger Molson Coors sits on both sides of the 2020s corporate culture war: - **The beneficiary.** The 2023 boycott of Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light, over a transgender influencer promotion, handed Coors Light and Miller Lite double-digit gains. Molson Coors posted a record 2023, with net sales up 9.4% to $11.7 billion. Those gains had faded by April 2024. - **The retreat.** In a **Sept 3–4, 2024** internal memo, the company: - ended its participation in the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, where it had scored 100 - dropped supplier-diversity goals and representation targets tied to executive pay - ended DEI training and renamed its employee resource groups [[Robby Starbuck]], who had campaigned against the company in late August, claimed credit. The company said the changes had been "in process since March." Either way, it was one of the early dominoes in the [[Anti-DEI]] corporate wave. That fits a company whose founding family funded the [[Heritage Foundation]]. ## Tariffs and cuts Beer is sold in aluminum, so Molson Coors was directly exposed when the U.S. tariff on aluminum doubled to **50%** in June 2025: - **August 2025:** it cut its profit outlook, citing the tariff's effect on aluminum costs. - **FY2025 10-K:** reported a roughly **$35 million** hit from the higher Midwest aluminum premium. - **October 2025:** announced it would cut about **400 salaried jobs** in the Americas, roughly 9% of that staff. The family that bankrolled the conservative movement now runs a company paying for that movement's trade policy. ## See also - [[Coors Family]] · [[Adolph Coors Brewing Company]] · [[MillerCoors]] · [[Peter Coors]] · [[William Coors]] - [[Robby Starbuck]] · [[Anti-DEI]] · [[Human Rights Campaign]] · [[Heritage Foundation]]