Interbrew

"The common thread It’s clear, by the trio’s business trajectory that they were getting more and more focused on a very narrow specialty of transactions. Here are three common threads between the companies they allocate most of their time and money to nowadays (only confirmed by the announced deal to merge Kraft and Heinz). a)Focus on developed markets Since merging their stakes with Interbrew, the trio has increasingly concentrated their efforts on developed markets like the U.S. and Europe. These markets present a unique combination of factors which suit their skills:"

"In March 2004, AmBev and its controlling shareholders announced a complex transaction, in which the trio, via its Braco holding company, merged its controlling stake in AmBev with a number of Belgium-based families’ stakes in Interbrew. As a result, the trio would share control in the combined company, which would itself hold controlling stakes in both AmBev[8] and Interbrew, and be called InBev[9]."

"The trio’s timeline 1971: Jorge Paulo Lemann buys the Garantia broker dealer in Rio, with financing from private individuals 1976: Garantia earns a banking license with the Brazilian Central Bank 1982: Garantia partners acquire a controlling stake in Lojas Americanas, a retailer. Beto becomes its CEO 1989: Garantia partners acquire a controlling stake in Cervejaria Brahma, a beer brewing company. Marcel becomes its CEO 1998: Banco Garantia is sold to Credit Suisse First Boston. Most of its executives won’t work with the trio anymore on a full-time basis (although many remain co-investors in many of their deals) 1999: Brahma merges with (i.e., buys) Cervejaria Antartica, forming Ambev, Brazil’s largest beer brewing company 2004: The trio enters an agreement with Belgian giant Interbrew’s controlling shareholders where the two groups become controlling shareholders of Inbev, the resulting company 2008: Inbev buys Anheuser-Busch, America’s most iconic brewery, on the brink of the subprime mortgage crisis, forming Anheuser-Busch Inbev, AB Inbev, for short 2010: 3G Capital, the trio’s private equity firm, does its largest deal to date, buying Burger King from another private equity fund…"

"We held a beauty contest with a few investment banks, hired Merrill Lynch and sent out a prospectus to interested buyers in autumn 2001. SAB, Interbrew and Heineken all submitted final bids, but all were lower than what I had been hoping for. I had set the bar high. I didn’t want to sell – but I was having mixed feelings. Heineken was the strongest contender, so we flew to London on 2 January 2002 to meet them and see if they wanted to do a deal. We were told that Freddy Heineken, the legendary former chairman and chief executive and owner of a controlling 50 per cent interest in the family beer company, was very much behind getting involved in Russia but had demanding criteria. We arrived in London and checked into a hotel. On our way to meet Heineken the following day, I spied a *Financial Times* front page reporting that Freddy had died the previous night. I took the lead in the meeting and I guess I put on a good show, as we still did the deal, selling to Heineken for $400 million, including a $50 million earn-out if we met certain targets. The date was 20 February 2002. As part of the deal, Heineken asked me to stay on as chairman for two years. A lot of capacity came on stream in the Russian beer market in 2002 and we did not hit the target. I still made $100 million from the Heineken deal, more than I had ever made or even had before. And Capital, which had been so close to backing out, tripled its investment."