My question treads into hypothetical territory, please bear with me.
Has anyone here tried understanding why Berkshire might have bought Constellation Brands (vs Boston Beer)? One of the reasons I can see is Berkshire is too large to own a sizable piece of Boston Beer.
My reading is Boston Beer is better managed balance sheet (0 debt/equity) compared to Constellation Brands (1.3). It also has better ROIC, though it’s operating margin is very tight (4-6%) but has better asset turnover.
I am trying to work backwards from Berkshire’s decision (ignoring the reasons of size for a moment) to improve my ways of interpreting and comparing 2 businesses.
\[I am not looking for qualitative reasons like "Boston Beer’s beers suck” etc.\]
It’s entirely possible the reason for not being a better business is qualitative such as moat. But here I am trying to learn how y’all would go about assessing - would be great if any of you familiar with the businesses or quick/professional at reading statements can help understand the things you would look for in such a scenario.