So while fellow classmate Eric Lundeen is jetting around the country on private jets reviewing the impact of an acquisition on a company's credit rating my summer's been routed in something a little simpler, beer.  That's right, cold refreshing beer.  I've spent the summer interning for MillerCoors in Golden, CO.  The first thing people ask about...well okay the second right behind, "Do you get free beer?" (More on that question later) is "Wait, I thought Miller and Coors were competitors?"  Well in July of 2007, Molson Coors and SABMiller joined forces by launching a joint venture of their US businesses with the stated goal of becoming America's best beer company.  By combining forces MillerCoors has been able to generate significant synergies that are helping them compete against market share leader Anheuser-Busch InBev.

During the summer I've worked in the Procurement Organization.  Procurement is currently tasked with helping the joint venture leverage the spend of the two legacy companies and drive savings that can be reinvested into the business.  At the start of the summer, I was given several projects to complete that have challenged my thought process and exposed me to the beer business.  One project encouraged me to come up with "Five Big Ideas" requiring me to think broadly, interact with individuals all over the organization, and review thousands of lines of data in excel.  I feel that these self directed projects have allowed me stretch my thinking while using some of the skills I learned during the first year at Leeds (including a Cash Conversion Cycle Analysis).  As the summer winds to a close I feel like I've had the opportunity to contribute to the organization and make a difference.

So in addition to learning about procurement I've also gotten to experience all sorts of parts of the business.  People may not realize, but one of the reasons why Coors Light is better than the competition is because of the care and attention given to the ingredients.  In June, I got to learn firsthand about the first step in the brewing process when I attended Barley Days.  Barley is malted eventually becoming the base of beer, what the yeast feeds on during fermentation.  Coors brands are unique in that MillerCoors works closely with farmers to raise the barley and then manages a network of Grain Elevators across four states were barley is purchased and stored before it is used in production.  Barley Days was an amazing experience were I meet Pete Coors, toured a Grain Elevator, and talked to the farmers responsible for helping to make great beer.  Additional events this summer included detailed tours of the Golden Brewery - the largest single site brewery in the US, interaction with the leaders of the company, and experiences at retail seeing the three tier distribution system that gets our beer into the hands of adult consumers first hand.  In a few weeks the summer may be gone, but my appreciation for the beer business will continue.

Oh yea.... and yes, I get several free cases of beer a month!

Ah... so a summary of what I am doing this summer...

I am the treasury intern for Ball Corporation, which is a large (7.6 billion dollar revenue) Broomfield, CO based public company that produces, metal beverage and food containers, aerosol containers, plastic containers, avionics and space systems (satellites).

I am working for the Corporate Treasurer and Senior Director of treasury. The main areas that I am gaining exposure to are: hedging against the company's foreign currency exchange rate risk, interest rate risk (for payments on their corporate bonds), commodity price hedging (locking in aluminum prices at the right time) and dealing with the asset allocation of the companies $600M pension investment fund.

I have been stretched in this role as I have very little background and experience in the financial markets (such as portfolio allocation, derivatives investing, commodities futures, etc), but rather in accounting and internal corporate planning and analysis. I have been asked to figure out how to update their approach to asset allocation model given the recent increased swings in the equity markets. I am researching Post Modern Portfolio Theory and I think this may be an approach that solves the issue they want to address. Of course, to understand "post modern" I am learning "modern" first.

Last week, Ball Corp was finalizing the deal to make a ~$600 million acquisition. As part of this transaction they are going to issue bonds. They wanted to make sure the acquisition news didn't result in a downgrade of the firms credit rating prior to the bond issue (otherwise they'd have to pay a higher interest rate on the bonds) so the company sent the CFO, treasurer and senior director of treasury to NY city to meet with Moody's and S&P credit rating agencies. Since I had done some pre work on the bond they invited me to join them on the trip. The best part was that they took the company's jet and I got to spend three hours each way with some of the top execs of the company. We flew out of the airport in Broomfield in the morning, had meetings during the day in the city, grabbed a beer a block from the world trade center and then flew out in time for a late dinner back home in boulder.

It was very surreal, the private jet was fun, but the exposure to the execs and sitting in on these high level meetings was amazing!