When Jorge Paulo Lemann put down his racket to fully embrace the world of finance, few would have predicted such a meteoric rise. Brazil’s wealthiest man is valued at US$25.6 billion and has been very active in the M&A market over the past year. His company 3G Capital in March announced the merger of H.J. Heinz (which they bought in 2013) with Kraft Foods for US$46 billion. Now his beer company Anheuser-Busch InBev is attempting a US$100 billion takeover of SABMiller. These companies are already the world’s top two biggest brewers, responsible for Budweiser, Stella Artois and Beck; and Miller, Coors, Peroni and Grolsche respectively, besides others. Anheuser-Busch InBev is itself the product of several top-tier mergers. Lemann bought controlling interests in two Brazilian breweries – Brahma Beer and Companhina Antartica Paulista, merging them to make AmBev. This company had a dominant position in South America and went on to merge with Belgian brewer Interbrew to form InBev.  They then went on to buy America brewer Anheuseur-Busch to become the world’s largest brewer. The deal for SABMiller is not his first attempt at buying the company, but it seems perhaps that this time, he will be successful.

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