ALEXANDRE BEHRING

Alexandre Behring grew up in Brazil and came to prominence running América Latina Logística — a Brazilian railroad company known as ALL — where he led a dramatic operational turnaround in the early 2000s. That work brought him to the attention of Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Telles, and Carlos Sicupira, the three Brazilian billionaires who had sold Banco Garantia to Credit Suisse First Boston in 1998 and were building what would become 3G Capital.

Behring joined 3G Capital as a managing partner and became the face of its US operations. In 2010, 3G took Burger King private for roughly $4 billion.

Behring joined the Burger King board as chairman and oversaw a restructuring that cut costs, refreshed the menu, and took the company public again in 2012 — this time worth considerably more. The playbook worked.

In 2013, 3G partnered with Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway to acquire H.J. Heinz for $28 billion.

Buffett described it as a partnership made in heaven. Heinz was restructured aggressively using zero-based budgeting.

Then in 2015, 3G engineered a merger of Kraft Foods Group with Heinz to create The Kraft Heinz Company — valued at roughly $49 billion at close. Behring became chairman.

The early years after the merger looked good. Then in February 2019, Kraft Heinz shocked the market with a $15.4 billion write-down on iconic brand values, an SEC investigation into accounting practices, a slashed dividend, and a stock that fell more than 25% in a single day.

Behring stepped down as chairman later that year. The lesson turned out to be that you can cut costs indefinitely, but you cannot cut your way to brand growth.

3G Capital is Behring's primary vehicle — a private equity and investment firm that focuses on large-scale acquisitions of consumer brands and applies zero-based budgeting to restructure them. Key investments have included Burger King (acquired 2010, re-IPO'd 2012), H.J.

Heinz (acquired 2013 with Berkshire Hathaway), and The Kraft Heinz Company (formed 2015 via merger). 3G has also been connected to AB InBev, the world's largest brewer, through its founding partnership with Lemann and team.

Behring served as Chairman of Kraft Heinz until stepping down in 2019 following the company's catastrophic write-down.

Zero-based budgeting is the core tool. The idea: every budget cycle starts from zero.

Every manager must justify every line item from scratch, every year. Nothing is carried over just because it existed last year.

Applied to bloated legacy food companies, this generated enormous cost savings in the first few years. The problem is that it also tends to gut R&D, marketing, and the brand investment that keeps iconic products relevant.

3G buys things that are famous, cuts costs until they scream, uses the cash flow to service acquisition debt, and counts on brand loyalty to hold while the restructuring happens. It worked brilliantly at Burger King.

It worked less brilliantly at Kraft Heinz, where the brands had been hollowed out and consumers started reaching for competitors.

The Heinz acquisition in 2013. 3G and Berkshire Hathaway jointly acquired H.J.

Heinz for $28 billion, with each partner putting up roughly $4 billion in equity and the rest in debt. Behring oversaw the restructuring that followed — stripping costs, replacing leadership, and running zero-based budgeting through every department.

The company's profitability improved dramatically. When the Kraft-Heinz merger closed in 2015, the original Heinz stake had grown significantly in value.

Buffett called 3G the ideal partner for this kind of deal. For a few years, it looked like the partnership would define a new model for consumer brand ownership.

The Kraft Heinz write-down of February 2019. Kraft Heinz announced a $15.4 billion impairment charge on the values of brands including Kraft and Oscar Mayer — brands that had been underinvested in for years while management focused on cost cuts.

The SEC launched an investigation into accounting practices. The dividend was slashed by 36%.

The stock fell from over $90 at peak to under $25. Warren Buffett later said the deal was a mistake, that he overpaid.

Behring stepped down as chairman later in 2019. The lesson was blunt: you cannot cut your way to brand growth forever, and zero-based budgeting without brand reinvestment eventually bills you for the difference.

Own iconic brands. Cut costs to the bone.

Use the freed-up cash flow to service debt and fund the next acquisition. Repeat.

The 3G philosophy is not subtle. Behring has spoken about meritocracy — the belief that great operators should be compensated for performance and mediocre managers should be replaced quickly.

Zero-based budgeting is the mechanism that enforces this at a company-wide level. The philosophy works well in the first five years of ownership.

The question that Kraft Heinz asked — and that 3G still has to answer — is what happens in year ten when the easy cost cuts are gone and the brands need rebuilding.

Alexandre Behring is Brazilian, originally from Rio de Janeiro. He attended school in Brazil before going on to graduate studies in the United States.

He is known for being private about his personal life and family. He is married and has maintained his Brazilian identity even while building his career primarily in the United States and operating globally.

Behring earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. Before that, he studied engineering in Brazil.

The Harvard MBA connected him to the networks that matter in global private equity — and likely played a role in the Berkshire Hathaway partnership, which Buffett has described as a relationship built on mutual trust developed over time.

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