Coors beer company cutting jobs, eliminating MillerCoors brand

Molson Coors CEO Gavin Hattersley said Wednesday that the company will undergo a massive restructuring across North America, cutting hundreds of jobs and merging its Canadian, U.S. and Latin American brands into one company.

The company announced in a blog post that up to 500 jobs will be cut across its North American and international offices while the company retires its MillerCoors brand.

{mosads}Among the areas affected by the cuts is Denver, according to local news affiliate ABC 7, where the company will shutter a corporate office while possibly offering some employees positions in Chicago or Milwaukee.

“Our business is at an inflection point,” Hattersley said in a statement. “We can continue down the path we’ve been on for several years now, or we can make the significant and difficult changes necessary to get back on the right track.”

“As the world around us rapidly changes and the nature of competition intensifies, our business performance is lagging,” Hattersley wrote in a note sent to employees, according to the blog post. “We’re over-indexed in declining segments, our core brands have seen years of volume losses, and we haven’t had the resources needed to fully invest behind our innovations.”

Hattersley also announced the retirement of two executives, including the head of Molson Coors International, and unveiled a new leadership team for the company.

“We cannot and will not wait,” Hattersley concluded his note to employees. “We will move faster and free up resources. We will invest in our brands and in our capabilities. We will regain the glory of our past, and we will create a brighter future for the Molson Coors Beverage Company.”

The company, which will be renamed Molson Coors Beverage Co. effective Jan. 1, is consolidating from four business units to two, according to the blog post.

It plans to put more money behind emerging brands such as Saint Archer Gold, Blue Moon Light Sky, Cape Line and Arnold Palmer Spiked in the U.S., and Coors Slice in Canada.