TONY MUSTA BEEN LOCO FROM DRINKING TOO MUCH OF HIS CERVEZA

Billionaire founder of the Corona beer brewery makes EVERYONE in the Spanish village where he grew up a MILLIONAIRE in his will

By Chris Summers and Hannah Al-Othman

Daily Mail
November 24, 2016

All 80 residents of the sleepy Spanish village of Cerezales del Condado have just become millionaires.

But their good fortune is not the result of winning El Gordo (The Fat One), Spain's national lottery. It is simply because the tiny hamlet was the birthplace of Antonino Fernández.

Mr Fernández emigrated to Mexico in 1949, when he was 32, and went on to become the CEO of Grupo Modelo, the brewery company who make Corona beer.

He died in August this year, aged 99, and was by then a billionaire.

Under his eccentric will, £169m was left to the residents of Cerezales, the village in Leon province where he was born and raised, with each villager inheriting roughly £2m ($2,490,500).

Fernández was born on December 13, 1917 into grinding poverty and grew up the eleventh of 13 children.

At the age of 14 Fernández had to leave school because his parents could not afford the fees.

After the Spanish Civil War moved to the town of Leon in Northern Spain, where he married his wife Cinia González Díez.

In 1949, his wife's uncle, who owned Grupo Modelo, invited the couple to move to Mexico, where Fernández began working for the brewery, as a warehouse employee.

He worked his way up through the ranks, and by 1971 he had risen to CEO and he helped make Corona not only Mexico's most popular beer but also a huge export phenomenon, including in his native Spain where it is sold under the Coronita brand.

Corona Extra is the second most imported bottled beer in the United States, with annual sales of $693million (£556million).

Maximino Sanchez, who owns the only bar in the village, which is stocked full of Mexican beers, told the Diario de León newspaper: 'We never had any pesete (money) before. I don't know, what we would have done without Antonino.'

Fernández was a well-known philanthropist who never forgot his motherland and was honoured by the former King of Spain, Juan Carlos, for his charitable deeds, including his work with disabled young people.

He also set up the 'Cerezales Antonino y Cinia' Foundation in his hometown in 2009, to support rural initiatives in the area.

But it was only after his death that it was clear to the people of Cerezales how much he loved his birthplace.

The village is also getting a brand new cultural centre, paid for out of his inheritance and a local non-profit foundation with 300 employees will also benefit.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story appeared in many TV news reports and newspapers throughout the world, but it may not be true. Here is a report from the Independent:

CORONA FOUNDER DIDN’T ACTUALLY MAKE VILLAGE RESIDENTS MILLIONAIRES
'It’s simply not true, unfortunately,' said one resident of the town. But the hamlet does owe a huge debt to Mr Fernandez

By Andrew Griffin

Independent
November 25, 2016

The founder of Corona didn't actually make everyone in his hometown a millionaire. But that doesn't mean that they're not very grateful.

This week, a story flew around the internet that Antonino Fernandez, the billionaire founder of the brewery who died this year, had left €2 million to every person in his home village. The story was reported by many major UK news organisations, including The Independent, the BBC and the Press Association, as well as internationally – but it wasn't strictly true.

People in the village said the story got "completely out of hand", and that they're not actually millionaires. They haven't received any money directly from Mr Fernandez, they said.

But Mr Fernandez did leave a huge amount of money with his hometown, and has paid for everything from cultural institutions to churches. And he did leave money to his family in Spain, who visit the village every year and help to keep its economy going.

“It’s simply not true, unfortunately,” said Lucia Alaejos from the Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia, a cultural centre that was founded in the village with the benefit of money from the foundations.

"It seems someone got the wrong end of the stick and the story has just grown and grown," she told the Local Spain. "It’s got completely out of hand.”

Rather than it going to people in the village, Mr Fernandez, who had no children of his own, actually left a huge part of his fortune to the descendents of his siblings. As one child of 13, the Corona founder had a large number of nieces and nephews, and so did help to make a large number of them rich.

“Many of them still visit for some months each summer, so it is great for the village and keeps it alive,” Ms Alaejos told the Local. “But the villagers won’t be sharing in that inheritance directly.”