Last month in San Francisco, the 127-year old Anchor Brewing Co. was shut down rather unceremoniously by its ownership group, Sapporo USA. The writing had apparently been on the wall for several months at that point, but it was only in late July that the hammer finally fell on workers at the storied company. Normally these kinds of stories end here with workers getting completely fucked over and private capital gutting anything desirable to pay off creditors.
But, the workers union at Anchor—unionized rather fittingly under the ILWU, Local 6—made an interesting play in response to the move: they began fundraising for a hail mary attempt to acquire the brewery and turn it into a worker cooperative. To that end they founded and incorporated Anchor SF Cooperative, and since then they've been fighting for a bid on the brewery's assets. Most recently, that bid raised an impressive $100,0001 from Bay Area residents and supporters of the brewery. They've also been releasing "Solidarity Ales" with other breweries to drum up support for the cooperative attempt. But it's been rather quiet since the beginning of September, and that's because Anchor SF Cooperative is now deep into the legal paperwork process that any acquisition will require.
VinePair, which has fastidiously covered the effort since it began toward the end of July, notes the significant hurdles the bid currently faces with Anchor's assets in liquidation. Most immediately: the overseer of said assets, SierraConstellation Partners, is all-but-obligated to entertain financial value of a bid. This means Anchor SF Cooperative will need significant investor buy-in to make a bid—VinePair notes that Sapporo USA bought the brewery for $80 million. Sapporo USA allegedly did not provide the Cooperative any financial information either (despite requests), so in that domain they're largely flying blind which is an issue for pitching investors. There's also the matter of finding an investor who doesn't care about a return on investment, or at least isn't interested in a quick and easy buck—an almost contradictory proposition.
But allegedly no bids have been solicited or entertained yet and an offering package isn't due for another few weeks, so there appears to still be time for things to line up in the Cooperative's favor. In the mean time they've been quietly crossing the t's and i's of their Cooperative structure, and ensuring it's all above board. Currently, for example, the Anchor SF Cooperative board has five positions, all elected by the Cooperative's membership. Getting this right, says former Anchor employee and Anchor Brewery Union member Patrick Machel, is the best way for them to present a serious bid in the weeks and months to come.
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And you can still donate to this fundraiser, FYI.
They provide a presentation on this page of what they intend to do if they win their bid and what they see as their path forward, so if you're interested in the details of that do also click through.
