Bill Gates buys stake in Heineken – 02/22/2023 – Market

Bill Gates bought a 3.76% stake in Dutch beverage giant Heineken Holding NV, although the billionaire Microsoft founder once said he was not a big drinker.

A document from the AFM (Netherlands Financial Markets Authority) said the shares were acquired on February 17. Heineken Holding owns the share control of the brewery Heineken NV.

Gates bought the shares of the Mexican Femsa, which is selling the brewery.

A separate document also dated Feb. 17 showed Femsa sold all 18 million shares it held in Heineken Holding. Gates bought 10.8 million shares, worth 883 million euros (R$ 4.8 billion) at current market prices, which obliges him to disclose the information according to the rules of the Dutch stock market.

In a 2018 chat session on Reddit, Gates said he was “not a big beer drinker”.

“When I end up at something like a baseball game, I drink light beer to get into the vibe of all the other beer drinkers. Sorry to disappoint the real beer drinkers.”

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, launched by the billionaire and his ex-wife, was not immediately available for comment.

Also this Wednesday (22), Heineken announced that it hopes to leave Russia in 2023, after being accused by a Dutch website of maintaining its operations in the country, despite having announced the withdrawal last year due to the invasion of Ukraine.

The FollowTheMoney platform said on Tuesday (21) that the company, the second largest in the world’s beer business, is “breaking its promise” by continuing to invest in Russia.

The information is based on activity reports from the Russian branch of the group.

With AFP