One of the world’s richest families disclosed additional details on more than $1 billion of private equity investments as it continues to expand holdings beyond the sector that made its fortune.
Alejandro Santo Domingo and his family have allocated through their European investment firm to almost a dozen U.S. funds outside public markets, including those from KKR & Co. and Jorge Paulo Lemann’s 3G Capital, according to recent registry filings.
Bevco, the Santo Domingos’ firm, has also put money into funds from Mantle Ridge, the activist investor behind a turnaround effort for U.S. discount retailer Dollar Tree Inc. Bevco had €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) in private equity investments and partnerships at the end of last year, about double the total from 12 months earlier, filings show.
A representative for Luxembourg-based Bevco, which doesn’t fully break out its private equity investments in annual accounts, declined to comment.
The Latin American dynasty made its fortune brewing beer and has rapidly built up its wealth outside the sector over the past decade without touching its major asset: a stake, alongside 3G’s founders, in Anheuser-Busch InBev SA. The family has a fortune of about $15 billion largely through the brewer, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Wealth shift
Bevco disclosed the names of its private equity holdings in an August registry filing for its shareholding structure, providing a rare insight into an opaque part of its multibillion-dollar portfolio. It didn’t disclose sums invested in each vehicle or the timings of the allocations.
Those holdings included funds from Byron Trott’s BDT Capital before its merger last year with Gregg Lemkau’s MSD Partners. The Santo Domingos’ KKR bets include vehicles behind a 2018 purchase of Unilever PLC's margarine and spreads business, as well as the 2022 buyout of Hunter Douglas NV through a deal that valued the maker of Luxaflex window coverings at about $7.1 billion. The Colombian family also previously invested in 3G partnerships with holdings in food giant Kraft Heinz Co.
Bevco currently has about 15% of its portfolio tied up in private equity, higher than the typical sums family offices allocate to the sector, according to a recent survey from Citigroup Inc. In the past three years, Bevco’s private equity allocations have increased more than sixfold, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Alejandro, 47, became the head of the family after his father’s death in 2011. The current composition of the family’s wealth began to take shape when they sold their stake in Colombian beer-maker Bavaria to UK brewer SAB Miller in 2005 for stock. AB InBev then acquired SAB Miller in 2016, with Alejandro becoming a key negotiator for the $103 billion deal.
The family also holds a stake valued at more than $200 million in the Spanish real estate firm Inmobiliaria Colonial, where they previously pledged stock to raise cash.
Back in Colombia, New York-based Santo Domingo is chairman of the holding company Valorem, which lists eight companies on its website ranging from retail to media to real estate and natural gas. Valorem, which lists 12.7 trillion pesos ($3 billion) of assets, was founded in 1997 as a way to separate certain assets that didn’t fit with Bavaria’s industrial portfolio.