Colombia’s Santo Domingo Family Cuts Its Position in Coffee Giant JDE Peet’s

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Bloomberg — One of the world’s richest families has cut its stake in coffee giant JDE Peet’s NV as it reshapes investments in the beverage sector that made its fortune.

Alejandro Santo Domingo and his family sold €166.7 million ($184 million) of shares in the owner of Peet’s Coffee since the start of last year through early May, more than halving their stake, according to registry filings. They also sold part of a roughly $1 billion holding in Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. (KDP) during the period and boosted their bet on Flying Embers, a maker of canned cocktails.

The Latin American dynasty has been raising cash by leveraging smaller listed holdings without touching their major asset: a stake in Budweiser-maker Anheuser-Busch InBev SA (BUD), which still makes up the bulk of their fortune. Colombia’s richest family now has a net worth of about $12 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

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A spokesman for Bevco, a Luxembourg-based firm that manages the Santo Domingos’ investments, declined to comment.

The family partnered over the past decade with investors including Bryon Trott’s BDT Capital Partners to help create Keurig Dr Pepper and JDE.

The Santo Domingos held about a 0.5% stake in JDE through early May after previously owning enough stock to be among the Amsterdam-based firm’s top 10 disclosed investors, according to Bevco’s recently filed 2022 accounts. They still owns about $990 million of Burlington, Massachusetts-based KDP and are also long-term shareholders in Spanish real estate firm Inmobiliaria Colonial Socimi SA, where they previously pledged stock to raise cash.

JDE’s shares have dropped more than 25% since the start of 2021, the year the family disclosed its stake, while KDP’s are little changed.

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Alejandro, 46, became the head of his family’s fortune after his father’s death in 2011. The current composition of his family’s wealth began to take shape when they sold their stake in Colombian beermaker 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 so-called Megabrew deal.

The family has expanded into other consumer businesses in recent years through private equity firms including Jorge Paulo Lemann’s 3G Capital, along with betting on smaller alcohol businesses. The Santo Domingos led a $10 million round for Flying Embers in 2020 and allocated further capital during the US company’s $20 million Series C fundraising round early last year.