James Beam began selling barrels of whiskey in 1795. By 1935, his family's business was formally established the James B. Beam Distilling Company. Ten years later, the Chicago spirits merchant Harry Blum bought the company, and in 1968 sold it to American Brands, Inc. In 1987, the James B. Beam Distilling Company purchased National Distillers and renamed itself the Jim Beam Brands Company. It was known as Jim Beam Brands Worldwide, Inc., by the timeFortune Brands purchased it in 2005. The following year, the company was renamed Beam Global Spirits & Wine, Inc. It was split from Fortune Brands to become an independent publicly traded company, Beam Inc., in 2011. Three years later, it was purchased by Suntory Holdings. As a distinct entity, the company was established as Beam Inc. on October 3, 2011, from the remainder of the Fortune Brands holding company after it sold and divested various other product lines to form a business focused exclusively on spirits and directly related products. In December 2011, Beam Inc., agreed to buy the only independent Irish whiskey distiller that existed at the time, the Cooley Distillery, for $95 million. On April 23, 2012, Beam announced it would acquire the Pinnacle vodka and Calico Jack rum brands for $600 million. In January 2014, Suntory announced a deal to buy Beam Inc. for about $13.6 billion. The acquisition was completed in April 2014, for a final cost of about $16 billion, when it was announced that Beam would become a subsidiary named "Beam Suntory." Suntory Beverage & Food Ltd trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The acquisition created a culture shock within the company when Japanese managers implied that the American-made Jim Beam whisky could be improved with the kaizen Japanese technique of continual improvement. In November 2015, Beam Suntory sold its sherry and brandy brands Fundador, Harveys, Terry y Tres Cepas to the Philippines-owned group Emperador for Euro 275 million. In March 2016, the company announced it would move its headquarters to the Merchandise Mart building on Chicago's Near North Side; Beam Suntory is subleasing 110,000 sq. ft on the 16th floor of the Mart from Motorola Mobility. The Chicago Cubs and Beam Suntory announced a long-term sponsorship deal in January 2017, making Beam the official spirits partner of the Cubs and Wrigley Field.
Products
The company's self-produced brands include the following:
In addition to brands produced directly by the company and its subsidiaries, Beam Suntory imports and markets some brands produced by others, such as the DeKuyper cordial. Beam facilities also produce spirits for brands owned by other companies, such as Calvert Extra blended whiskey, now owned by Luxco. The company also previously sold Harveys Bristol Cream sherry, as well as the brandy brands Fundador, Terry Centenario, and Tres Cepas, before selling these brands to Grupo Emperador Spain S.A., part of the Alliance Global Group.
In popular culture
In the 2003 Sofia Coppola movie Lost in Translation, actor Bill Murray goes to Japan to shoot a commercial for the Suntory whisky and drops the now famous slogan, "For relaxing times, make it Suntory time."
