Planned sale of stake in firm that owns Quilmes brew seen
as betrayal
By LESLIE MOORE / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
QUILMES, Argentina - At midday, the smell of hops drifts
through this brewery town, and T-shirts with the Quilmes logo
- blue and white like the Argentine flag - flap from clotheslines.
Since the birth of Quilmes beer in 1888, Argentines of all tastes
have come to view the lager as a relic of national identity.
But any day now, Argentina's archrivals, the Brazilians, are expected
to buy a big chunk of Quilmes, striking many Argentines as a defection
of the worst kind.
"It'd be like the U.S. selling Florida to Castro," said
Adrian Ibarra, who has worked at the brewery for 15 years.
For decades, Quilmes has been one of Argentina's most famous brands,
and Quilmes beer is as Argentine as the country's endless pampas.
Named after the extinct native Indian group Kilmes that roamed
the Argentine plains, the beer is cooked up in breweries across
the country, from Buenos Aires suburbs to the Andean province
of Mendoza.
"No Argentine wants Quilmes to be sold to foreigners,"
said Norma Gerchen, moments after rooting for the Quilmes soccer
team. "We have hope that someday the economy will improve
and that when that day comes, some things will still belong to
us."
Dutch-owned Heineken owns a 15 percent Quilmes stake, a presence
some seem to swallow easier than a Brazilian shift.
The pending purchase of Quilmes is one of two big-ticket sales
of Argentine assets and occurs amid raucous debate about Argentina's
place in a globalized economy. Earlier this year, Brazilian-owned
oil company Petrobras bought a controlling stake of energy producer
Petrolera Perez Companc for $1 billion.
The January peso crash, nearly 30 percent unemployment and a fifth
recession year has impoverished millions, and many vilify globalism
for wrecking their economy.
"The sale of Quilmes is just one more consequence of globalism,"
lamented soccer spectator Mario Baudrix.
Earlier this year, Brazilian beverage company Ambev announced
that it would buy a 36 percent stake in Quinsa, the company that
owns Quilmes Industrial, with an option to buy more. The pending
$600 million deal would leave 33 percent of Quinsa in Argentine
hands (remaining shares trade on international stock exchanges).
Many industry observers believe that Argentine antitrust officials
will soon approve the venture.
The Bembergs, German-Argentine immigrants who founded Quilmes,
were the town's most important benefactors. They built a school,
Catholic chapel, bungalow and chalet-style homes for blue-collar
workers and management, and a beer garden. Quilmes sponsors soccer
team Quilmes, one of Argentina's oldest.
"There was a give-and-take between the brewery and this town,"
said Rodolfo Calvo, who makes household water deliveries. "It
wasn't like a Coca-Cola, which vacuums up money but hasn't built
anything for our town."
Quilmes spokesman Fernando Lascano minimizes cries from fellow
Argentines that a sale to Brazilians is tantamount to betrayal.
"That's a matter of being excessively sentimental,"
said Mr. Lascano, whose office is decorated with Quilmes memorabilia.
"It's a nationalist conviction, waving the flag.
"What does the public want? They want a good product. If
they think Quilmes is a good product, then that's what counts."
Mr. Lascano likes to describe Ambev's pending purchase of Quinsa
as a merger of equals but says "anything is negotiable"
in the company's future.
Quinsa became a giant in South America, with beer brands in Bolivia,
Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay, and a controlling stake in the nation's
two largest PepsiCo bottlers.
But Quinsa stumbled in some markets outside Argentina, says Raul
Ferro, a beer connoisseur and editor of America Economia, a magazine
that covers business in Latin America. In neighboring Chile, for
example, the marketing of Quilmes was a virtual flop, he said.
"They weren't prepared to become a regional player"
with long-term endurance, Mr. Ferro said.
"It was as if they thought that the Quilmes brand was all-powerful
and they couldn't get beyond that idea," he said.
Mr. Ferro and others say global industry consolidation is a cause
of Quilmes' sell-out.
"What's happening at Quilmes is a replica of what's happening
around the world," said Juan Gomez Vega, a financial analyst
for invertirOnline.com, an online brokerage firm. "At the
end of the day, it comes down to a cost-benefit analysis."
In the prosperous 1990s, Argentina sold its richest telecom, oil
and natural gas assets to Spanish and French investors. A new
round of foreigners is arriving, taking advantage of a cheap peso.
Malaysians have bought vast land tracts in the ski and winery
province of Mendoza, inspiring Argentine lawmakers to debate a
law limiting how much land non-Argentines can buy.
Oscar Cardoso, who writes about international relations for the
leading daily Clarin, thinks unemployment fears spook Argentines
-not historic rivalries with Brazil.
"It's not so much about Brazil as it is what happened to
job creation under foreign management," he said. "The
record is awful."
Loyalty to Quilmes transcends even soccer passions.
"Quilmes beer should stay among us Argentines," said
Mariano Segovia, a soccer midfielder for Atlético Rafaela,
moments after his team tied Quilmes, 1-1.
Leslie Moore is a free-lance writer based in Buenos Aires.
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ARGENTINES LAMENT IDEA OF BRAZILIAN
HAND ON THEIR BEER
