????席卷全球的收購狂潮在上周三達到了新的高度。一大早，啤酒巨頭百威英博宣布有意競購另一家世界級啤酒企業南非米勒。對此，全球的反壟斷專家都大發噓聲。他們聲稱，一旦交易成功，全球啤酒市場基本上就將掌握在一家公司手中。根據國際研究機構Euromonitor的數據，百威英博屆時在全球的市場占有率會高達30%。

????不過，屆時還將出現另一個更讓人擔憂的問題。如果這次交易獲得批準（目前暫時不考慮股權被強制過戶的情況），全球究竟有多少食品和飲料的消費會掌握在三個人的手中？

????巴西私募公司3G的名稱代表三位主要合伙人：豪爾赫?保羅?雷曼、卡洛斯?阿爾貝托?斯庫彼拉和馬塞爾?赫爾曼?泰列斯。他們就是百威英博競購南非米勒的幕后推手。百威英博目前控制著百威、時代和科羅娜等多個知名啤酒品牌。此外，他們在過去五年中收購了好幾家私有和上市食品公司（其中部分收購是與沃倫?巴菲特合作完成的），其中包括亨氏、卡夫、漢堡王和Tim Horton。這六家公司加起來的收入約有1000億美元，市值總和高達3500億美元。這讓3G成為了全球最大的食品和飲料產品集團，比收入650億美元的百事可樂公司還要大得多。食品和飲料業咨詢公司Bevmark的主管湯姆?皮爾科表示：“這幾個人是要掌控世界嗎？嗯，顯然如此。”

????當然，3G沒有完全控制這些公司，所以你無法把他們看作一個公司實體。不過3G已經成為上述各家公司中實力最強的團體，遠超任何普通股東。他們有必要的資金來做他們想做的事情，到目前為止，這似乎還僅限于削減成本或是整合生產。

????在這個時代，消費者都在遠離大品牌的食物，但3G依舊在持續發展。他們似乎想用規模來應對消費者對大品牌的抵制。但這對消費者的選擇權來說究竟意味著什么呢？（財富中文網）

????譯者：嚴匡正

????審校：任文科

????The global takeover frenzy hit a new high on Wednesday, with the news this morning that beer giant AB InBev has made a play for SABMiller. Already, antitrust experts around the globe are tut-tutting that too much of the world’s beer market could come under one umbrella should the deal go through, with an estimated 30% of global market share coming under the control of AB InBev, according to Euromonitor.

????But another, possibly more worrisome question comes to mind. If this deal is approved, leaving any forced divestitures aside for the moment, exactly how much of the world’s food and beverage consumption will be concentrated in the hands of three men?

????Brazilian private equity firm 3G—named for the three main partners, Brazilians Jorge Paolo Lemann, Carlos Alberto Sicupira, and Marcel Herrmann Telles—is behind the move for SABMiller, as it was for the rollup of AB InBev, which, in addition to Anheuser Busch, controls brands like Budweiser, Stella Artois, and Corona already. But 3G has also, in the past five years, taken private—and then, in some cases, public—several other large food companies (some in partnership with Warren Buffett) including Heinz (2013), Kraft (2015), Burger King (2010), and Tim Horton’s (2014). Together, estimated revenue for the six companies is around $100 billion, with an estimated combined market cap of $350 billion. That would make it one of the largest combination of food and beverage products in the world—much larger than $65 billion-in-revenues PepsiCo, for example. Says Tom Pirko, director of Bevmark, which advises the food and beverage industry: “Are these guys taking over the world? Well, sure.”

????To be sure, 3G doesn’t control 100% of these companies, so you cannot think of them as a single corporate entity. But 3G is the most powerful group at each of those companies—more so than any common shareholder, to be sure. It has the wherewithal to do what it wishes, which, so far, seems to be cutting costs and consolidating production. (See, for example, our article Squeezing Heinz or this, from Fortune, on 3G exec Carlos Brito).

????In an era when consumers are moving away from big food, 3G continues to grow bigger. Scale, it seems, is 3G’s antidote to consumers’ rejection of big brands. But what does it mean for choice?