DIAGEO CONTINUES TO GO GLOBAL

Diageo is getting a taste of Brazil. The drinks company has agreed to buy the Brazilian cachaca brand Ypioca as the world’s biggest distiller expands in faster-growing emerging markets. Diageo will buy the brand and some production assets from Ypioca Agroindustrial Limitada for 9OO million reais (US $453 million) in cash. Cachaca, the main ingredient in a caipirinha cocktail, is the most popular liquor in Brazil. Ypioca, which is the second-largest brand by value and third-largest by volume, had annual sales of about 177 million reais in 2O11. It’s made from fermented sugar cane juice. Diageo is among distillers seeking to expand outside Europe and the US, its largest markets, as economic conditions hold back growth, and hopes to expand its sales from emerging markets to at least 5O percent of its total revenue. It bought Turkey’s Mey Icki raki brand for about $2.1 billion last year and got regulatory approval in March to buy a Chinese white-spirits maker.