Consumer brand titan to acquire Pabst
Investor C. Dean Metropoulos, known for building popular consumer brands such as Bumble Bee Tuna, Vlasic Pickles, Chef Boyardee and Duncan Hines, has reached an agreement to acquire Pabst Brewing Co.
Metropoulos, 64, will purchase Pabst from the charitable foundation that owns the company for about $250 million, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
The transaction is in its final stages and has the financial backing of General Electric Co.’s lending arm, the Journal said.
Pabst Brewing is the country’s fifth-largest beer supplier. The company also owns the Schlitz, Old Style, Lone Star and Colt 45 brands.
Woodridge, Ill.-based Pabst operates as a virtual brewer, owning the brands, which are brewed under contract with MillerCoors LLC.
Pabst has been owned for about a decade by California-based Kalmanovitz Charitable Foundation.
Pabst closed its Milwaukee brewery in 1996.
