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Corona Beer Owner Makes Everyone In His Village A Millionaire, Leaves Them $2.5 Million Each In His Will

By Tito Ojo-Medubi
Published on: 00:06 PST, Nov 25, 2016

Corona beer owner, Antonino Fernández willed $2.5 million to every resident of his village upon his death, the Telegraph is reporting. Corona Extra is brewed in Mexico and is the second-most imported beer in America and with a record of over $693 million in annual sales.

Fernández who was 99-years-old died in August. He grew up in the tiny village of Cerezales del Condado in northwestern Spain. The former Chairman of Grupo Modelo group was born in 1917. At the age of 14, he dropped out of school because his parents could not afford his fees. In 1949, at the age of 32, he moved to Mexico and began work as a warehouse worker in his wife’s uncle’s company. After painstakingly climbing up the corporate ladder, Fernández became CEO in 1971.

He held the position up until 1997 before remaining as Chairman of the board until 2005. His nephew is now in charge of the conglomerate. The billionaire disbursed over $210 million to the 80 residents of his impoverished village. Maximino Sanchez, owner of the only bar in the village, expressed shock at Fernández’s generosity.

“We never had any money before. I don’t know what we would have done without Antonino.”

This is not the first time that Fernández would be showing plenty of goodwill towards his community. In 2009, he set up a foundation to encourage rural development in the area. He also established an anti-discriminatory organization in Mexico and Spain to ensure that disabled people get work. The former King of Spain, Juan Carlos paid tribute to the philanthropist before he died.

The American thirst for Mexican beers like Corona is causing a water crisis in parts of Mexico. According to the local mayor of a municipality in Zaragoza, water is fast disappearing for human consumption.

[Image by Carolyn Kaster/AP Images]

“We have no water for human consumption…there’s barely a drop of water when you open the tap.”

Constellation Brands, a brewery run by a US firm presently draws water from reserves of up to 500 meters in depth. The local mayor revealed that the company because of the American surge for Mexican beer was planning to still increase production which would further worsen the current situation.

“We’re worried because we’re already impacted by this extraction of 1,200 liters of water per second. It’s contradictory that while Constellation Brands has industrial amounts of water to make beer, the municipality of Zaragoza doesn’t have 100 liters per second of water to give people to drink or use in their homes.”

Constellation Brands bought the brewery in 2013 and immediately announced an investment of over $2.27 billion to expand the facility and glass factory. The brewery which has the franchise to produce and export Corona, Modelo, and other Mexican beers to the United States is hoping to generate 20 million bottles a day by 2017. Presently, Mexico is one of the biggest exporters of beer in the world. The United States imports more Mexican beer than all other states combined.

This is not the first time that a wealthy man would be showing an act of kindness. In 2013, Yogi Omar offered to give a homeless man some change for food. Instead, the so-called beggar asked the Vancouver man what he could do for him.

The man ended up paying Omar’s rent of close to $500. The mystery man had said for three hours every week during Christmas, he waited on street corners to reward anyone who was willing to show any act of kindness to him. Omar said he was shocked at how quickly the tables had turned.

“I wanted to give him food more than anything else really, ‘He said ‘I do this with my family every year. They just want to see who cares about the homeless. I was like ‘Wow, that’s crazy.”’

[Featured Image by Matt Rourke/AP Images]

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