Type Public Predecessor Canandaigua Brands Inc Founder Marvin L. Sands CEO Robert Sands (Jul 2007–) | Industry Beverages Founded 1945 (1945) Revenue 6.028 billion USD Subsidiaries Crown Imports LLC | |
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Traded as NYSE: STZ
S&P 500 Component Stock price STZ (NYSE) US$ 158.76 +0.33 (+0.21%)3 Mar, 4:02 PM GMT-5 - Disclaimer Headquarters Victor, New York, United States | ||
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Constellation Brands, Inc., of Victor, New York, is a publicly traded drinks company with brands in wine, beer and spirits. It is the largest beer import company measured by sales and has the third-largest market share (7.4 percent) of all major beer suppliers. The company is the largest wine producer in the world.
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History
The company was established in 1945 by Marvin Sands in the Finger Lakes region of New York as Canandaigua Industries Company. Since that time, the company has grown through internal expansion and by acquisitions across all segments of the beverage alcohol industry.
In the fiscal year 2008, it had sales of over $3.77 billion. It operates about 40 production facilities, employs some 4,300, and markets its products worldwide.
The company owns more than 100 brands in wine, beer and spirits. Wine brands include Robert Mondavi, Clos du Bois, Franciscan Estates, Ravenswood, Blackstone, Nobilo, Kim Crawford, Inniskillin, Jackson-Triggs, Manischewitz and Arbor Mist. Beer brands include Corona, Modelo Especial, Negra Modelo, Pacífico, and Tocayo Brewing. Spirits brands include Black Velvet Canadian Whisky, Svedka Vodka and Paul Masson Grande Amber Brandy.
Wine fraud
In 2010, a French court in Carcassonne, France, convicted 12 wine traders and producers for selling fake Pinot noir wine to buyers in the US, amongst them Constellation, in a scheme that lasted from January 2006 to March 2008. Constellation later faced and settled a class action lawsuit because it "should have known" that the wine was fake.
Acquisitions
Constellation Brands has expanded by acquiring other drinks companies.
In 1987, the company purchased the Manischewitz winery in Canandaigua, New York, and continues to license the Manischewitz name from R.A.B. Foods.
In 1998 it acquired Matthew Clark plc in the United Kingdom, and after selling off its cider business, the Gaymer Cider Company, sold half of the business to Punch Taverns. Recent acquisitions include BRL Hardy (Australia) and Nobilo (New Zealand) in 2003; Robert Mondavi Corp. for $1 billion in 2004; Vincor International, Canada's largest wine company, for $1.44 billion in 2006; Spirits Marque One (owner of Svedka Vodka) in 2007; and Beam Wines Estates, the wine operations of Fortune Brands (which included several major brands such as Clos du Bois) for $885 million in 2008. The company later moved to a more premium wine portfolio, divesting Almaden Vineyards, Inglenook Winery, and the Paul Masson winery in Madera, California, in 2008, and its value spirits portfolio to the Sazerac Company in 2009.
In June 2013 the company, which formerly imported Corona and other Modelo brands to the United States, acquired the US rights to those brands as a part of an anti-trust settlement permitting Modelo's acquisition by Anheuser-Busch InBev, along with a brewery in Piedras Negras, Mexico. It now produces its own versions of those products for the US, with Modelo serving all other countries.
In December 2015, Constellation announced the $1 billion acquisition of Ballast Point Brewing of San Diego.