What a gesture.
Every single resident of the tiny Spanish village of Cerezales del Condado is waking up a millionaire today, thanks to the founder of Corona beer.
Antonino Fernandez died in August at the age of 98, and has split most of his estate between the 80 residents of his impoverished home town.
Fernandez left €169m to the people of Cerezales del Condado, which comes in at over €2m per person.
Incredible.
“I do not know what we would have done without Antonino. We used to have no Pesete,” said Maximino Sanchez, the owner of the only bar in the village.
Fernandez was born in near total poverty as one of 13 children in the village, which is in northwest Spain in the province of Leon.
He left school as a 14-year-old and moved to Mexico at the age of 32, in 1949, to work for Grupo Modelo in a warehouse.
Antonino then worked his way up to CEO and would go on to make Corona one of the world’s leading beer brands.
He stayed on as chairman of the board until 2005, when he handed the reins over to his nephew.
A remarkably kind man, he set up schemes in both Spain and Mexico to find work for people with disabilities.
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