Gates acquires stake worth $1bn in Heineken Holdings
By Felicia Nwosu
To sustain, strengthen and extend his investment and business tentacles across sectors, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has bought a stake in Heineken Holdings, which gives him ownership of 3.76% of the company’s shares.
The business leader has boosted his business empire strength by acquiring close to a billion-dollar stake in Heineken Holding NV, giving him 3.7% of the Dutch company’s shares.
Following some reports made available by the Netherlands’ Financial Markets Authority (AFM), Gates bought 10.8 million shares on February 17, worth about $939.87 million. The transaction happened the same day that Heineken’s major Mexican shareholder, Femsa, sold billions of euros worth of shares. Previously, Femsa has indicated that it planned on selling all its shares in Heineken within two to three years.
He purchased approximately 850 million euros of shares in Heineken Holding, the Dutch beer group’s holding company. This means that his stake accounts for 3.8 percent of the shares.
Also, according to Bloomberg, Heineken is not the only Dutch company in which Gates has invested money. It pointed out that the wealthy businessman has also invested in online supermarket Picnic, and has an interest of approximately 1.3 percent in fertilizer producer OCI, which is listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange.
Gates personally bought smaller sets of 6.7 million shares and another 4.2 million through the philanthropic organization, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. These deals took place last week on the same day that Heineken’s major Mexican shareholder, Femsa, sold billions of euros worth of shares.
Femsa became a major shareholder of Heineken in 2010 when the Dutch group took over the Mexican company’s beer branch. Femsa also operates approximately 20,000 stores, more than 3,600 pharmacies, and bottler Coca-Cola Femsa. The company has recently decided to focus exclusively on its digital, retail and bottling activities and to cash in on the Heineken stake.
Heineken itself took the opportunity to buy back 1 billion euros worth of its own shares. Other investors, including Gates, also bought shares. As a result, Femsa’s participation will temporarily decrease from almost 15 percent to just over 8 percent. Femsa has indicated that it will sell the entire interest in a period of two to three.
While many continued to wonder why the tech CEO is tilting towards the brewery side, Bill Gates had officially cleared the air by reiterating that he is not a fan of beer years back during an interview when he was asked what his favourite beer was.
“I am not a big beer drinker,” Gates wrote. “When I end up at something like a baseball game, I drink light beer to get with the vibe of all the other beer drinkers. Sorry to disappoint real beer drinkers.”
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