Brazilian Beer Woes Turn Barclays Into Ambev’s Biggest Bear

Barclays sees mounting challenges for Ambev SA, the unit of Anheuser-Busch InBev in charge of half of the Americas.

Ambev’s American depositary receipts were downgraded to underweight from equal-weight by analysts led by Laurence Whyatt. “We see several challenges for ABEV, particularly in its core business (Beer Brazil) that we believe are likely to get worse before they can get better,” the analysts said in a report Tuesday.