A story that the founder of Corona beer bequeathed €2.3 million to every resident of the small Spanish village in which he grew up has since been proven untrue.
The story, that Antonino Fernández, who died earlier this year at the age of 98, left behind an estate valued at about $210 million (€198 million) and that the majority of his fortune is to be shared among the 80 residents of the north-western Spanish village of Cerezales del Condado, has been refuted by the communications director for the Fundanción Cerezales Antonino y Cinia, the cultural centre based in the town which was funded by Fernández.
“I’m afraid I have to deny this specific fact, the information that has been published is not correct.
“However, Antonino did a lot for the village where he was born and for the Foundation. But he did it during his life, ” Lucía Alaejos told Buzzfeed news.
Fernández grew up in poverty in the village in the province of León and was the eleventh of 13 children. At 14 he left school to work in his parents’ fields, Time magazine reports.
In 1949, at the age of 32, he left Spain for Mexico after an invite from an uncle to help run the family business, Grupo Modelo, where he later founded Corona beer, turning it into one of the biggest beer brands in the world.
Over the years he worked his way through the company, becoming chairman in the 1970s, a role he only gave up aged 87, when he passed the reins on to his nephew, the magazine reports.