George Clooney Is Selling His Tequila Company for a Small Fortune
By Kenzie Bryant. Photos: Getty Images.
What’s that? It’s the sweet sound of a celebrity side hustle taking all the way off. George Clooney and his partners in tequila, Rande Gerber and Michael Meldman, have sold Casamigos Tequila to Diageo, an alcoholic beverage company that also owns Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, and Guinness, among several other brands you may have heard of. Diageo told CNBC that it will pay $700 million upfront, “with the potential for another $300 million based on the tequila’s performance over 10 years.” (Casamigos had no comment on the details of the sale).
Casamigos began as a side business for Clooney and Gerber’s friends and family, but launched nationwide in 2013. Clooney wrote in a statement to CNBC, “If you asked us four years ago if we had a billion dollar company, I don’t think we would have said yes. This reflects Diageo’s belief in our company and our belief in Diageo.”
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“But we’re not going anywhere. We’ll still be very much a part of Casamigos. Starting with a shot tonight. Maybe two,” he added. (It wouldn’t be a Clooney comment without a touch of levity. See: the statement on the birth of his and Amal’s twins.
Gerber, too, wrote in a statement to Vanity Fair, “We created Casamigos Tequila four years ago for us to drink personally and selling it for one billion dollars is something we never could have imagined.”
This story originally appeared on Vanity Fair.
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