MISSOURI

Anheuser criticizes InBev board tactics

ST. LOUIS — Anheuser-Busch Cos. says InBev's plan to remove its board is an attempt by the Belgian beer maker to buy the company at a price that is too low.

InBev said earlier that it will file a preliminary consent solicitation asking Anheuser's board to consult shareholders about replacing the board. The move is part of its hostile $46 billion bid for St. Louis-based Anheuser, which Anheuser rejected two weeks ago, saying it undervalued the company.

Shareholders have the right to sue Anheuser's board if they feel that the directors are not acting in their best interest. A majority of shareholders would need to back InBev's plan.

Anheuser-Busch is asking shareholders to not sign or return any consent they may receive from InBev.

Sporting News moves to N. Carolina

ST. LOUIS — For 122 years, Sporting News called St. Louis home. That ended over the weekend when the publication officially moved to Charlotte, N.C.

The departure of Sporting News was announced in March by American Cities Business Journals, which owns the publication. Online operations consolidated in Charlotte last summer. Two people in the American Cities office in Charlotte confirmed Monday that the move has taken place.

The move comes amid a period of change for Sporting News, which plans to begin "Sporting News Today," a free digital daily sports newspaper, on July 23. In September, the print publication that now appears weekly will run every other week.

Thirty-one Sporting News staff members were still working in St. Louis. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that 17 will move, 11 will leave and three will work from home.

Sporting News had been based in St. Louis since 1886 when it was founded by former newspaper writer Alfred H. Spink as an eight-page broadsheet focusing strictly on baseball.

GERMANY

VW plans mid-July vote on U.S. plant

FRANKFURT — Germany's Volkswagen AG says it will likely announce a decision on its plans for a new U.S. plant after a supervisory board meeting next week.

Europe's largest carmaker has been considering locating a new production facility in Alabama, Tennessee or Michigan.

The company wants to increase its presence in the U.S., where it holds only 2 percent of the market. VW officials have said the company intends to more than triple its U.S. sales to 1 million by 2018.

VW spokesman Christoph Adomat said Monday that an official announcement is likely after a July 15 meeting of the supervisory board, the German equivalent of a board of directors.

— From wire reports