Compania Cervecerias Unidas SA

What it is

CCU is Chile’s biggest drinks company, selling beer, soft drinks, water, juice, wine and pisco. It was founded in 1902 and is Chile’s largest brewer and a top-two soft-drink and wine producer.

It now reaches well beyond home, with operations in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Peru. Its best-known brands include Cristal and Escudo beer, plus licensed names like Heineken and Pepsi.

Who owns it

Control sits with one holding vehicle, not the public. CCU is controlled by Inversiones y Rentas S.A. (IRSA), which owns directly and indirectly 65.87% of the shares.

That vehicle is itself a 50/50 partnership. IRSA is owned half by Quiñenco, the holding company of Chile’s Luksic family, and half by Heineken Chile, part of the global brewer Heineken.

A formal pact binds them together: the agreement stops Quiñenco and Heineken from buying or selling CCU shares on their own. That keeps the remaining roughly a third of shares as free float for ordinary investors.

Who runs it

A major changing of the guard is underway. Patricio Jottar will leave the chief executive role on 30 June 2026 after 28 years in charge.

Eduardo Ffrench-Davis, currently head of the bottling subsidiary Embotelladoras Chilenas Unidas, takes over as CEO on 1 July 2026. The board is also being refreshed, with Heineken’s Americas president, Alexandre Othenio Carreteiro, joining as vice-chairman from August 2026.

The money, in plain words

Sales barely moved last year. Revenue was almost flat – CLP 2.91 trillion (US$3.21bn) in 2025 against CLP 2.90 trillion (US$3.2 bn) in 2024, growth of about 0.2% (our calculation).

Profit is the worry. The company keeps only about 4 cents of profit from every peso of sales – a net profit margin of 4.0% (our calculation) – thin for a drinks group, and net profit fell from CLP 161bn (US$178 mn) to CLP 117bn (US$129m).

For every peso owners put in, it earned about 8 back over the year – a return on equity of 7.9%, modest. It still pays a steady dividend, with a yield of 3.1%, and it holds CLP 519bn (about US$573m) of cash, a useful cushion.

What it is doing now

The squeeze comes largely from abroad. Argentina, which generated about a quarter of sales in 2024, is hard to operate in, with inflation that has topped 100% a year on average recently.

CCU is still investing for growth across the region, including a 50/50 beer venture with Postobón in Colombia and a water partnership with Danone in Argentina.

What to watch

The first test is the handover. A new CEO after 28 years of one leader is a real change for a company prized for stability.

The second is recovery. Watch whether margins climb back as Argentina cools and the cheaper peso eases costs – and whether the dividend holds while profit is low.

This is news, not investment advice.