A tail of two brewers

By Jack Holland, Alex Nishida, and Kyle Douglas

The Two Brewers…

• Molsen, is a Canadian company headquarters in Montreal

• Founded in 1786, family owned and run to this day

• Coors, an American company headquarters in Golden, Colorado

• Founded in 1873, family owned and run to this day

Molson Coors Brewing Company

• The two companies merged in 2005

• Revenue: 3.03 Billion USD

• Operating Costs: 754 Million USD

• Employees: 9,700

• Board of directors, has Coors and Molsen family members

Brands & Products

Problems before the merger…

• The two Molsen brothers disagreed on if they should merge with Coors or not.

• The Merger CEO Leo Kiely brought the merger together by stressing the importance of the family businesses and maintaining local sales / distribution teams.

From your perspective, were the consequences of the conflict between Eric Molson and Ian Molson positive or

negative?

• Yes, but the conflict was not handled well.

• Too public

• Ian Molson, saw it as a take over, which ultimately led Coors to take great strides in ensuring it was not seen as a take over

What ineffective techniques for managing conflict are evident in

the case?

• The Molsen family did not concentrate on consensus building

• The struggle for control may have got in the way of trying to build the best company possible, the best merge

• Not enough involvement of Molsen’s board of directors “The family’s show”

• Positions vs. interest: Eric & Ian Molsen failed to reach a consensus of interest and focused on their opposing positions

What effective techniques for managing conflict are evident in

the case?

• Emphasis on the company’s similar family values and passion for brewing

• Ensuring that each company’s sales and distribution teams maintained their own markets

• There were not many effective techniques demonstrated during this conflict resolution, persistence was the only saving grace