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Case: Heineken: The CFO’s Role in Making Foreign Acquisitions Mr. Leendert Schouten, member of the executive board, Heineken, N.V., gave the following presentation at The Conference Board’s Finance Forum hosted by Credit Suisse in Zurich, June 1993. In the long term every company needs growth, first to cover costs and second, but most important, to act as a internal stimulus. Without growth, management’s capabilities tend to be focused only on re-orientating products and cost cutting. While these things must be done, they are not enough. Heineken is convinced that growth can lead to economies of scale, better market opportunities, and innovation. Growth can come from exporting, licensing or acquiring a minority or majority shareholding in another company. I intend to concentrate on growth by acquisition and mainly acquisitions of majority shareholdings. Heineken takes a majority shareholding when the market concerned is fully developed and when market share and economies of scale are expected to play a major part in achieving financial success. In the past decade, Heineken’s growth of about 10 % a year has been mostly through acquisitions. Without them growth would have been little more than 2% annually, roughly the average growth of the world’s beer companies. The role of the chief financial officer in the acquisition process is not an easy one to define. No two acquisitions are exactly the same, and the CFO’s role in the acquisition of a listed company is very different from that in the acquisition of small family-owned business. The CFO is sometimes totally involved in negotiations and, at other times, hardly involved at all. But in both cases, an acquisition process should be followed although the sequence of steps in the process may vary. External Relationships Conducting an active acquisition policy requires good relationships with people. Contacts with shareholders, with other brewers and their managers and executives, and with