Marcel Hermann Telles, the billionaire Brazilian investor and co-founder of buyout firm 3G Capital Inc., has donated his stake in the brewing giant AB InBev to his son, Max Van Hoegaerden Herrmann Telles, as reported by Bloomberg. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it was revealed that Marcel Telles, aged 73, will transfer the entire stake to Max, who will also assume his role at the entity controlling the investment. The move makes his son a key player in the future of the embattled drinks company.
The value of Telles' stake in AB InBev is estimated to be around USD 6.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Telles, the youngest among a billionaire trio comprising of him and his partners Jorge Paulo Lemann and Carlos Sicupira, holds a distinguished role among the investors, having dedicated a significant part of his life to the brewing industry since their partnership began in the 1970s.
After the acquisition of Brazil's Brahma by their former investment bank Garantia in the late 1980s, Telles led the company and later played a pivotal role in the creation of Ambev in 1999.
In 2004, AmBev merged with Belgium brewerInterbrew to form InBev, becoming the largest brewer in the world by volume. Four years later InBev swallowed US-based Anheuser-Busch resulting in the formation of AB InBev.
This move follows Telles' previous efforts in wealth distribution within his family. In 2017, he donated shares held in the Brazilian real estate firm Sao Carlos Empreendimentos e Participacoes SA to his sons Max and Christian. Lemann and Sicupira also followed suit by transferring shares in the same firm to their family members during that period.
The trio of Brazilian billionaires primarily holds their AB InBev stake through the entity BRC. This entity, in turn, possesses a 50% stake in Stichting AK Netherlands, which holds 33.47% of AB InBev, according to the company's website.
