FREDDY HEINEKEN'S RECIPE MAY BE SCRAPPED

摘要

He was the marketing whiz who dressed Heineken beer in green. He was the visionary who understood that a good brew could travel and proved it by turning a venera-ble Dutch lager into the best-known beer brand in the world―the sudsy equivalent of Marlboro or Coca-Cola. Through it all, Alfred "Freddy" Heineken turned his controlling one-quarter stake in the family business into a $4 billion fortune, Holland's biggest. And when he died in early Janu- ary at 78, he left behind one of Europe's storied family-controlled empires. But family companies, even rich ones like $8.7 billion Heineken, tread uphill in the global economy. For years, Heineken has had to limit acquisitions and rule out mergers in order to leave Freddy Heineken in control. Now, as his fortune passes to his daughter, Charlene de Carvalho, a housewife and mother of five in London, the rules could change. "This could be Heineken unchained," says Michael Kraland, the Dutch president of Trinity Capital Partners, a Paris investment firm.