ROSEMONT, Ill. -- Reyes Beverage Group has announced an agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets of Gold Coast Beverage Distributors Inc. of South Florida.
“Gold Coast Beverage Distributors is one of the premier beer distributors in the country, and we are very excited by this opportunity to expand our operations in the State of Florida," said Ray Guerin, CEO of Reyes Beverage Group, Rosemont, Ill.
Gold Coast Beverage Distributors distributes more than 27 million cases of beer to more than 10,600 licensed retailers across the counties of Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, Fla.
A Reyes Beverage Group company that will operate as Gold Coast Beverage, will distribute beer from some of the world’s most recognized brewers and importers, including Constellation Brands, MillerCoors, Yuengling, Heineken USA, Mark Anthony Brands, Diageo-Guinness USA, and Pabst. The portfolio will also include products from craft breweries Boston Beer, Lagunitas Brewing, New Belgium and Sierra Nevada Brewing.
The companies anticipate that the transaction will close in January.
The acquisition will catapult the wholesaler over competitor Anheuser-Busch InBev as the top distributor in the United States, reported Crain's Chicago Business.
The deal is among the largest ever in the beer distribution industry, creating a wholesaler superpower with more than 150 million cases of beer annually, Eric Shepard of Beer Marketer's Insights told the publication.
"This is the biggest [acquisition] ever," he said. "But the Reyeses are the Reyeses, and they're not going to stop. Everyone is expecting continued consolidation in the market, and the bigger distributors are going to get bigger."
Reyes sold 102 million cases of beer in 2013; Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch distributed about 135 million, said the report, citing data from Beer Business Daily.
Click here to view the full Crain's report.
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