Eric Molson: A Generational Perspective

My family has been brewing beer in Canada for over 220 years, and the Coors family has been in the beer business in the US for over 130 years. While we’ve both faced challenges along the way, it’s no accident that our businesses have survived and thrived for hundreds of years. A commitment to strong management and good governance has sustained and strengthened the companies over time, and will continue to do so. Now, some two years after the merger, the Molson Coors Brewing Company is stronger than ever.

The role of the Board of Directors in a public company is critically important, and as Chairman of our Board, my central goal is to create long-term value for shareholders. Our Vice Chairman Pete Coors shares this goal, and our generations of family leadership drive us to build the best company for future generations. The Molson and Coors families are significant shareholders with long traditions in the company. We are motivated by certain principles and values that have been established over our long histories in Canada and the US. These include a commitment to putting the best possible team in place to run our company, starting with our CEO Peter Swinburn and extending to every one of our nearly 10,000 employees around the world.

Family stewardship means that a small group of people has a huge responsibility. We can never be complacent. Performance is always the objective, in both the long and the short term. While we the families carry this responsibility, let me also be clear about what happens when we walk into the boardroom. At all times, directors of this corporation act in the best interests of all of the corporation’s shareholders. Directors, once elected, cannot represent specific constituencies. Just because a director is nominated by one or another of the families, that director represents all shareholders when he or she asks questions or casts a vote. Pete and I both feel that it must be this way for our Board to work. That goes both for the directors elected by the Class A shareholders and those elected by the Class B shareholders. When we sit at the board table, the Class A and Class B distinction disappears and we all act in the best interests of the company and of all shareholders.

As a result of the significant family ownership, Molson Coors enjoys an ability to plan and execute growth from a long-term perspective. While we are keenly aware that it is important to create value continuously in order to maintain support from financial markets in the short term, family control and board presence mean that we have more freedom to support those management strategies and decisions that may take more than one or two quarters to execute.

As investors with a strong presence on the Board, our families share all of the same goals and aspirations as other shareholders. We strive to act in ways that build and maintain trust and confidence in the company. So, these are some additional goals that we insist family members, as shareholders and directors, live up to:

• The families have the obligation to maintain and enhance the best attributes of the history and traditions of Molson in Canada, MillerCoors in the US, and Coors Brewers in the UK. Many of those attributes contribute strongly to our branding efforts, and we have to be true to them
• Favoritism is not tolerated. No personal benefits such as unwarranted employment should be offered to friends, relatives or associates. While it may be acceptable for family to ask on behalf of someone that a donation and/or business opportunity be considered, no such opportunity should be approved unless it meets the same standards as any other application. When someone comes to me to ask for a job, for example, I accept the application, I thank them for showing interest in our company and offering to help, then I forward it to the relevant person with the words “no special treatment” clearly marked on the document – and I expect that to be followed
• It’s great that family members want to work in the business, and they’ve got to work hard
• Compensation must be in line with market standards: no private benefits should be conferred, including to family members
• Of course, all of these responsibilities must be exercised within the context of good citizenship, creating wealth and using it for the benefit of our communities. Both the Coors family and the Molson family try hard to live up to these standards

These principles, ethics and values have been practiced by the Molson and Coors brewing families for nearly four centuries. It is a culture that is supportive of the interests of all shareholders, and one that is built to last.