Companhia de Bebidas das Americas - AmBev (ABV)

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Claudio Freitas

www.zacks.com

Companhia de Bebidas das Americas, AmBev (ABV), is the largest beverage company in South America, producing beer, soft drinks, sports drinks, iced tea, and bottled water. The 2000 merger of Brazil's top two beverage firms, Companhia Cervejaria Brahma and Companhia Antarctica Paulista, formed AmBev. The company is headquartered and operates primarily in Brazil. AmBev has operations in Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Paraguay it began expanding into Central America and Peru in 2003. The company is also the exclusive distributor of Pepsi beverage products in Brazil, though beer remains its core business. The company has 41 beverage production plants (soft drinks, beer, water, ice tea, and isotonic drinks), four malting plants, one soft drink concentrate plant, one guarana farm, and three barley fermentation units, for a total of 49 plants in Brazil and abroad. While the beer segment generates approximately 80% of revenue, soft drinks and other products (non-alcoholic and non-carbonated) account for the remaining 20% of revenue. At the beginning of 2004, AmBev announced a billion dollar merger with the Belgian beer maker, Interbrew. The new InBev, which was formed at the end of August 2004, is now the world's largest brewer by volume. AmBev paid US$7.3 billion to take over Interbrew's Canadian subsidiary, Labatt. During 2007, the Brazilian business represented approximately 62.2 % of total revenues Hispanic Latin America accounted for 16.9% and North American business accounted for the balance. AmBev is one of the two most profitable major brewers in the world (the other being Anheuser-Busch), with EBITDA margins over 40%.

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