The story
The Cuauhtémoc brewery was founded in Monterrey in 1890 by José A. Muguerza, Francisco G. Sada Muguerza, Alberto Sada Muguerza, Isaac Garza Garza (brother in-law of Francisco and Alberto, married to their sister Consuelo Sada Muguerza), and Joseph M. Schnaider, with the capital of 150,000 pesos, starting with the Carta Blanca brand. The Cuauhtémoc brewery produced its first beer barrel in 1893 and won first prize in the Chicago and Paris world fairs. The Cervecería Moctezuma was founded near Orizaba during the late Porfiriato by German brewer Wilhelm Hasse.
In 1909 Cervecería Cuauhtémoc started to expand vertically. To provide glass bottles, in 1909, Vidrios y Cristales de Monterrey, S.A., later Vidriera Monterrey, S.A. later Grupo Vitro, was founded. In order to produce boxes, bottle caps, and packaging materials, Fábricas de Cartón Monterrey was founded in 1900. In 1929, Malta, S.A. was established to produce malt for the brewery. The cardboard box department would eventually become Titán Company.
During the Mexican Revolution, which began in 1910, its original founders supported Victoriano Huerta. As a consequence, his rival Venustiano Carranza seized the brewery, so the founders' families fled to Texas. They re-acquired the brewery through the intervention of U.S. and Russian diplomats.
The Sociedad Cuauhtémoc was founded in 1918 to provide medical and educative services to the workers' families; the final objective was to provide a welfare system to avoid strikes. The working day was reduced from twelve to nine hours in 1907.
By 1936 the holdings of the Garza, Calderón, and Sada families and their associates were divided into two groups: the Cuauhtemoc (brewery) group and the Vidriera (glass) group. In that year, the family's holdings were reorganized, creating Valores Industriales S.A. (VISA) as a holding company controlling the majority of shares of the firms formerly held by Cuauhtemoc, especially Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc and Famosa.
During the 20th century, Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma was headed by José Calderón Muguerza and the two Garza Sada brothers Eugenio Garza Sada (assassinated in 1973 in a kidnapping attempt by Mexican left-wing guerrillas) and Roberto Garza Sada. In 1943, company executive Eugenio Garza Sada with his brother and other prominent people, founded the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM), and in 1973, the Mexican Professional Baseball Hall of Fame was opened at the site of the company headquarters.
After Eugenio Garza Sada's assassination, VISA, the Cerveceria Cuauthtemoc Moctezuma's holding, was split into two units: Visa and Grupo Industrial Alfa. Alfa received Hylsa and cash, while Visa retained the brewery business and its stake in the Banco de Londres and its affiliated institutions, and Eugenio Garza Lagüera, a son of Eugenio Garza Sada, was named CEO of Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma, and Bernardo Garza Sada a son of Roberto Garza Sada was named CEO of Alfa.
When oil prices fell in 1981, Mexico's economic boom, financed with borrowed money, abruptly halted. Visa found itself more than $1 billion in debt the following year, and the federal government nationalized Banca Serfin—the nation's third-largest bank—in which Visa held a 77 percent stake. The nondeposit banks and associated financial companies in Grupo Financiero Serfin, not nationalized, were reorganized into a new financial-services group called Valores de Monterrey (Vamsa). Vamsa's life-insurance subsidiary, Seguros Monterrey, was the largest in Mexico.
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With the integration of the Moctezuma brewery in 1985, the Dos Equis, Superior, Sol, and Noche Buena brands were added to the Carta Blanca, Tecate, Bohemia and Indio brands.
In 1988 Fomento Económico Mexicano, S.A. de C.V. was formed as the main subsidiary of Visa containing beer and other companies. In 1994 FEMSA sold a 22 percent share of its beer business to John Labatt Ltd. of Canada and signed an agreement with Labatt to associate their respective companies in the United States. FEMSA became the successor of Visa in 1998. On 11 January 2010, the Dutch brewing company Heineken International announced it would acquire the beer activities of FEMSA, including Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery.
In 2017 Heineken Mexico (Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma) and Molson Coors signed a deal to import Cerveza Sol to areas in the US where Heineken didn't already import Sol. This deal also allowed Heineken Mexico (Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma) to import Molson Coors Miller and Coors brands to Mexico, a deal similar to Molson Coors importing Heineken France's Killian's to the US.
From Wikipedia’s article on Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4