住在麥迪遜的人們仍然很難接受一個真真切切的事實：在3月底前一個尚未指定的日子，一位卡夫亨氏(Kraft Heinz)員工將關閉奧斯卡·梅耶工廠的燈光，再也不會有人來上班——在這家工廠長達98年的歷史中，這種事還是頭一遭。

奧斯卡·梅耶工廠一度是麥迪遜市最大的雇主——逾4000名工人每小時要處理900頭豬，將它們轉化為奧斯卡·梅耶熱狗、培根和切片火腿等產品。當卡夫亨氏于2015年宣布將關閉該工廠時，其員工數量已下降到約1000人，最近更是減少到400人左右；仍在生產的，包括一種名為“肝乳酪”,80歲以下消費者幾乎不會問津的產品。沒有人知道3月份之后會發生什么事情。

由于多達20公頃的廠址需要進行環境修復，該廠的“價值”估計在負1000萬到負2000萬美元之間。市政府正在竭力為這片土地宣傳造勢，但最終很可能無計可施；規劃者從未想象過奧斯卡·梅耶會離開。重新開發如此大一片土地，絕非易事。麥迪遜市長保羅·索格林告訴當地一家刊物，“鑒于其規模，它可能需要十年，乃至更長的開發時間。”

那么，究竟發生了什么事？為什么一家僅僅在15個月前還為1000人提供好工作的工廠即將關門大吉？（除了“肝乳酪”之外。）這個答案解釋的，遠不止一家中西部肉制品加工廠的命運。它還會闡明3G資本公司（3G Captial）在卡夫亨氏實施的一種與傳統信仰相悖的經營策略。以咄咄逼人的管理風格著稱的3G資本是一家私募股權公司，其監管者是現年77歲的巴西首富豪爾赫·保羅·雷曼。這個答案甚至會預示美國食品行業未來的模樣，或許還有全球影響，因為所有證據表明，意欲變革這個龐大行業的3G資本才剛剛啟程。但也有證據表明，在過去30年大獲成功的3G戰術，這一次或許不會那么奏效。

In Madison, they still struggle to accept that it’s really happening. On a not-yet-specified day before the end of March, a Kraft Heinz employee will turn off the lights in the sprawling Oscar Mayer plant, and for the first time in 98 years, no one will be coming back to work.

The facility was once the city’s largest employer, with over 4,000 workers transforming hogs, 900 an hour, into Oscar Mayer hot dogs, bacon, sliced ham, and more. Employment was down to about 1,000 when Kraft Heinz announced in 2015 that it would close the plant, and recently the workers had dwindled to about 400; the products still being made include an item called liver cheese, which few consumers under age 80 are clamoring for. No one knows what happens after March.

Because the 50-acre site will need environmental remediation, its “value” is estimated at negative $10 million to negative $20 million. The city is scrambling to drum up interest in the site but was caught flat-footed; planners never imagined that Oscar Mayer would leave. Redeveloping so many acres won’t be easy. Madison Mayor Paul Soglin told a local publication, “It’s possible that given its size, it will take a decade or more to develop.”

So what happened? Why is a plant that provided good jobs to 1,000 people just 15 months ago being shut down? (Other than the liver cheese.) The answer explains a lot more than the fate of a Midwestern processed-meat factory. It also illustrates Kraft Heinz’s iconoclastic strategy under the hard-driving management of 3G Capital, the private equity firm overseen by Brazil’s richest man, 77-year-old Jorge Paulo Lemann. The answer even hints at the future of the U.S. food industry—and perhaps has global implications—because all evidence suggests that 3G is just getting started in an effort to transform this whole vast sector. But evidence also suggests that the 3G playbook, which has worked spectacularly well over the past 30 years, may not prove so effective this time.

3G管理模式

如果你搞不清楚大型食品公司相互交織的聯姻和離異進程，那倒是情有可原。18個月前，亨氏收購卡夫食品集團，卡夫亨氏由此成立。卡夫是一家主要面向美國市場的食品制造商，它在2012年拆分了一大塊主要面向國際市場的零食業務，后者現在被稱為億滋國際——不久后，這家獨立的上市公司很可能再次進入這個長篇故事。2013年，在沃倫·巴菲特巨額融資的幫助下，3G資本收購亨氏，并將其私有化。當它隨后收購卡夫，并于2015年推動其與亨氏合并之后，3G資本將合并后的公司，即卡夫亨氏公開上市。巴菲特旗下的伯克希爾哈撒韋公司持有其大約27%的股權，3G資本的持股比例約為24%。

明白了嗎？盡管巴菲特以微弱優勢成為卡夫亨氏的大股東，并且在該公司董事會擁有3個席位（包括他本人在內），但他很樂意讓3G掌舵。早在他們收購卡夫之前，巴菲特就對3G的經營能力贊不絕口。“我毫不尷尬地承認，要是我掌管一切的話，亨氏的經營狀況絕對不會像現在這樣好。”他說。

巴菲特如此推崇的3G管理模式值得我們悉心觀察，因為它正在席卷整個食品行業。居于這種模式核心的，是廣義的精英治理。每位員工每天都必須證明自己存在的理由。對于表現最好的人來說，這是個好消息；他們的晉升速度，是笨拙的老食品公司聞所未聞的。比如，卡夫亨氏CEO伯納多·希斯于2005年首次出任CEO，執掌3G前身旗下的All America Latina Logistic公司。他隨后出任3G于2010年收購的漢堡王公司CEO。2013年，他拾階而上，成為亨氏CEO，現在執掌卡夫亨氏。他只有46歲。

表現不佳者經常以同樣的速度被解雇。預算成本每年都會接受嚴苛的評估，如果不再被視為值得投資，它們就會被清除。畢竟，希斯和其他高管都是3G合伙人。他們自己的錢被捆綁在每個風險項目上，無力承受多愁善感的后果。

You can be forgiven if you’re not up to speed on the intertwined corporate marriages and divorces in the world of Big Food. Kraft Heinz came into being 18 months ago when Heinz bought Kraft Foods Group, a mostly U.S. grocery manufacturer that in 2012 had separated itself from a collection of mostly non-U.S. snack businesses now known as Mondelez International, an independent, publicly traded company that could reenter this saga before long. Heinz had been bought and taken private in 2013 by 3G Capital, with considerable financing from Warren Buffett. When it then bought Kraft and merged it with Heinz in 2015, 3G took the combined business public as Kraft Heinz. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owns about 27% of the stock; 3G, about 24%.

Got that? While Buffett is the largest shareholder by a slight margin and has three seats on the board of directors, including one for himself, he’s happy to let 3G run the show. Back before they bought Kraft, he said, “I’m not embarrassed to admit that Heinz is run far better under [3G] than would be the case if I were in charge.”

The 3G management model that Buffett so admires is worth a close look because it’s on track to eat the food industry. At its heart is meritocracy, broadly defined. Every employee must justify his existence every day. That’s great news for the very best performers; they are promoted with speed that’s unheard-of in lumbering old food companies. Kraft Heinz CEO Bernardo Hees, for example, first became a CEO in 2005 at a company called All America Latina Logistica, owned by a 3G predecessor. He was then made CEO of Burger King, a 3G holding since 2010. He moved up to be CEO of Heinz in 2013 and now of Kraft Heinz. He’s only 46.

Underperformers get fired with the same alacrity. Budgeted costs also are evaluated unsparingly every year, or more often, and are eliminated if they’re no longer judged worth incurring. After all, Hees (pronounced “Hess”) and other top executives are 3G partners. Their own money is tied up in each venture, and they can’t afford to be sentimental about it.

讓我們再次回到麥迪遜的奧斯卡·梅耶工廠。事實是，這家工廠早該關閉了，每個人都知道這一點。現已退休的前卡夫高管約翰·魯夫說，“這是一家特別糟糕的工廠。”他的大部分職業生涯都是在世界各地的食品加工廠度過的。“它擁有一支很好的員工團隊，但它是一家多年來持續增加人手的老廠。絕對不該像現在這樣經營這家工廠。關閉它可能是一件正確的事情。”那么，為什么卡夫不在3G入主之前，早早地關閉奧斯卡·梅耶工廠呢？原因很簡單：人們愛這家工廠。這是大型老企業面臨的一個經典問題。它是卡夫公司百年歷史上一個備受珍視的組成部分，但3G不這樣看。瑞士信貸分析師羅伯特·莫斯柯指出，“卡夫很難做出艱難的選擇。3G已經迫使他們做出艱難的決定，比如關閉奧斯卡·梅耶工廠。這是非常令人傷感的。”魯夫認同這種觀點。他說，“3G剪掉了很多剩余的情感紐帶。”

年營收達260億美元的卡夫亨氏，正在全公司范圍內踐行這種理念。3G管理模式的第一步是，批量更換高管團隊和大刀闊斧地削減成本。在亨氏，3G曾在一天之內解雇12人高管團隊中的11位。當亨氏收購卡夫時，10位高管被迅速撤職。在卡夫亨氏如今的10人高管團隊中，有8位來自3G資本，皆是深諳3G管理模式的巴西人。“如果不會說葡萄牙語，你多少會處于不利地位。”一位前亨氏董事說。

與每一筆收購交易一樣，并購卡夫后，3G迅速推行一系列旨在削減成本的措施。這樁收購交易完成沒幾天，長期存放免費卡夫產品（奶酪，Jell-O果凍等等）的辦公室冰箱就被推出去了。公司專機不再運營。從CEO以降，所有員工都只能坐經濟艙。現在，該公司有時要求出差的員工兩人合住一間客房。比實際節約更重要的是，3G希望傳達一種訊息：“我們要像公司主人那樣思考和做事，要像花自己的錢那樣用好每一分錢。”該公司告訴潛在員工。

真正的節省需要更長時間來實現。卡夫亨氏的新領導層迫不及待地宣布，他們將關閉北美七家工廠，并整合其他地區的生產業務，由此裁減約2600個崗位。（其中一家位于加州富勒頓的工廠最近獲得緩刑，因為它生產的方便午餐盒Lunchables備受市場追捧。）一項額外的節省來自二級效應：一些州、城市和工會開始向該公司提供獎勵，以求保住當地的工廠。比如，為了讓卡夫亨氏繼續經營當地的熱狗廠，密蘇里州布恩縣在去年12月份對該公司大幅減稅——盡管這家工廠已裁減40%的員工，但卡夫亨氏并沒有關閉該廠的計劃。卡夫亨氏打算關閉愛荷華州達文波特市一家擁有71年歷史的工廠，但計劃在附近興建一家新廠——根據一項協議，這家新廠雇傭的員工數量僅相當于舊廠的三分之一，當地政府還將給予卡夫亨氏475萬美元的獎勵。

Which brings us back to the Oscar Mayer plant in Madison. The truth is, that plant should have been closed long ago, and everybody knew it. “The Madison plant was a terrible plant,” says John Ruff, a retired Kraft executive who spent much of his career in food-processing plants worldwide. “It had good people, but it was an old plant that had been added to over the years. It was never meant to be run as it was being run. Closing it was probably the right thing to do.” So why hadn’t Kraft closed it long before 3G came along? The reason is a classic problem for big, old businesses: People loved that plant. It was a treasured part of the company’s history. But not to 3G. “[Kraft] had trouble making tough choices,” says Credit Suisse analyst Robert Moskow. “3G has forced them to make tough choices, like closing the Oscar Mayer facility. It was very emotional.” Ruff agrees: “3G got rid of a lot of remaining emotional ties.”

Now project that philosophy across a $26 billion company. Step 1 in the 3G management model is a wholesale replacement of the top team and a blitzkrieg of cost cutting. At Heinz, 3G cashiered 11 of the top 12 executives in one day (as this publication chronicled in a 2013 story headlined “Squeezing Heinz”). When Heinz bought Kraft, 10 top executives were quickly dismissed. Of Kraft Heinz’s top 10 leaders today, eight are Brazilians from 3G who know the playbook. “If you don’t speak Portuguese, you’re at a bit of a disadvantage,” says a former Heinz director.

As with every 3G takeover, cost-cutting measures were imposed immediately after the takeover of Kraft. Office refrigerators long stocked with free Kraft products (cheese, Jell-O) were wheeled out within days of the merger’s closing. Corporate aircraft were ditched, and everyone from the CEO down was made to fly coach. And today employees on the road are sometimes required to double up in hotel rooms. More important than the actual savings is the message. “We think and act like owners of our business, treating every dollar as if it were our own,” the company tells prospective employees.

The real savings take longer to implement. Kraft Heinz’s new leaders wasted little time announcing they would close seven plants in North America and consolidate production in other locations, eliminating some 2,600 jobs. (One of the seven, a plant in Fullerton, Calif., was recently given a reprieve due to strong demand for Lunchables.) Additional savings come from a second-order effect: States, cities, and labor unions, desperate not to lose their local facility, start offering incentives to the company to keep it open. In December, for example, Boone County, Mo., granted Kraft Heinz large tax abatements to keep operating its hot dog plant, with 40% fewer workers, even though it had not been scheduled to close. The company is closing a 71-year-old plant in Davenport, Iowa, but building a new one nearby—and getting $4.75 million in incentives in a deal that requires the new plant to employ only one-third as many workers as the old one.

可預見的是，3G不喜歡富麗堂皇的公司總部。它將卡夫總部從其奢華的芝加哥郊外園區搬到市中心。新總部占據一棟摩天大樓的五層樓，其面積僅相當于老總部的四分之一，開放式布局設計——很多書桌，幾乎沒有多少獨立的辦公室。

一條不能停止游泳的鯊魚

到目前為止，這聽起來像是私募股權公司的典型戰略：收購一家公司后，大幅削減成本，并準備在大約5年后退出。但3G絕非典型。要想理解其獨特的經營方式，以及它或許將對卡夫亨氏，乃至整個食品行業產生何種影響，不妨回顧一下3G最引人矚目的投資案例：百威英博。

1989年，雷曼與他的兩個合作伙伴卡洛斯·阿爾貝托·斯庫彼拉和馬塞爾·赫爾曼·泰勒斯收購了一家名為Brahma的巴西啤酒公司。1999年，Brahma收購競爭對手Antarctica，并于2004年將其與比利時釀酒商Interbrew合并，組成英博集團。其旗下品牌包括巴斯、貝克、拉巴特、獅威、時代等等。英博集團隨后的收購行動彰顯了令人驚嘆的野心——2008年斥資520億美元收購世界上最大的釀酒商安海斯-布希公司。但更加令人瞠目的是，百威英博隨后以超過1000億美元的價格，吞并世界第二大釀酒商米勒公司，創下商業史上第三大公司收購案例。這筆交易于去年秋天正式完成，為百威英博帶來了大約200個品牌，其中包括3個在全球營銷的品牌：百威、科羅娜和時代。該公司釀造的啤酒幾乎占全球啤酒銷量的三分之一。

請注意幾個關鍵要素：

?大部分私募股權公司在收購之日就在考慮退出時機，但雷曼和他的合伙人已經在啤酒行業深耕了28年之久，并且還在繼續。

?盡管英博集團和安海斯-布希公司的合并要求合伙人稀釋其股份，但他們仍然主導著董事會，在15個董事席位中占據4席。

?這種模式是收購，擠壓，重復。3G管理者展現出非凡的經營技能，大大增強了他們收購的每家公司的價值。但他們并非偉大的創新者。他們通過收購實現增長——這種增長不是內生的。

一大阻礙是，這種模式不可能永遠管用。其創造價值的渠道只有一個，即收購更多的公司。“它就像一條不能停止游泳的鯊魚。”另一家主要食品制造商的董事說。但百威英博無法進一步應用這種模式，因為反壟斷當局絕對不會允許這家規模如斯龐大的釀酒商收購另一家重要的釀酒商。那么下一步是什么？所有可能知道答案的人都不愿意置評。業界的猜測是，鑒于百威英博現在只能在啤酒業之外尋求擴張，可口可樂將成為它的下一個目標。

下一個收購目標

因此，一個大問題是：卡夫亨氏是否打算成為食品世界的百威英博，徹底主導整個行業，讓剩余的廠商幾乎沒有容身之地？3G守口如瓶，不愿透露自身戰略，甚至不愿為投資者提供收益預期數據？但所有的跡象表明，卡夫亨氏抱有這樣的雄心。《巴西日報》博客在11月份報道稱，3G正在籌集80億到100億美元的資金，打算通過卡夫亨氏收購一家全球性消費品公司。（3G自然不愿置評此事。）無論這份報告是否準確，收購都符合該模式。它是3G創造價值的方式。此外就是時機。3G是在收購亨氏兩年后吞并卡夫的。而現在距離其收購卡夫，差不多過了兩年時間。

投資者深信，卡夫亨氏將進行一次大規模收購，并且已經將這一前景納入其股價之中。你可以基于分析師對利潤的普遍預期，計算出一個公平反映未來利潤流現值的股票價格。咨詢公司EVA Dimensions受《財富》邀請，根據卡夫亨氏的經濟利潤（稅后營業利潤減去資本費用），確定它的公允股價應為59美元，而其實際股價高達87美元。

唯有卡夫亨氏創造的經濟利潤遠遠超過所有人對目前這家公司的預期，它才值這么多錢。也就是說，投資者已經認定另一次大規模的3G式收購在所難免。EVA Dimensions公司CEO貝內特·斯圖爾特總結稱，“卡夫亨氏需要以合理的價格獲得另一個卡夫亨氏，越早越好。”

整個美國食品行業都在猜測卡夫亨氏的下一個收購對象。頗具諷刺意味的是，最受關注的緋聞對象竟然是億滋國際——許多人認為，在僅僅分手5年后，它即將與“前夫”復合。在卡夫和亨氏合并完成僅僅幾周后，維權投資者比爾·阿克曼旗下的潘興廣場基金就買入56億美元的億滋國際股票。市場普遍認為，此舉證明億滋國際最有可能成為下一個收購目標。（阿克曼和億滋國際均拒絕接受采訪。）

對于3G來說，億滋國際的吸引力是多方面的。最重要的是，它將幫助卡夫亨氏實現一大優先目標——向增長緩慢的美國市場之外擴展。海外業務目前僅占卡夫亨氏營收額的30%；與億滋國際合并后，這一比例將增至48%。作為增長最快的食品市場，新興經濟體在卡夫亨氏營收額的占比將從12%增至26%。此外，億滋國際也為3G提供了一個施展其運營魔法的好機會，因為它的Ebitda（稅息折舊及攤銷前利潤）利潤率僅為18.3%，是主要潛在收購目標中最低的。（其他的潛在目標包括凱洛格、金寶湯、通用磨坊和嬰兒配方奶粉制造商美贊臣。）這使得卡夫亨氏有足夠的空間將其利潤率提升到自身的水平——令人咋舌的30%。另一個利好是：只要價位合理，億滋國際似乎不可能拒絕。其董事會成員包括維權投資者納爾遜·佩爾茨、凱雷集團董事總經理帕特里克·西沃特，兩人都是熱切的價值追求者。

很容易理解為什么關于這樁交易的傳聞不斷涌現，最近一次是在去年12月份（導致億滋國際的股價上漲5%）。但細細想來，這樁交易至少面臨一個嚴峻挑戰。億滋國際廣泛分布的全球足跡既是一大吸引力，也是一個問題。3G的效率機器在龐大且緊密結合的運營中效果最好，但它似乎很難在一個業務遍及165個國家的企業中發揮效用。卡夫亨氏需要創造的顯著改進，可能很難實現。

其他的潛在收購目標也存在問題。作為投資者認定的次優收購對象，通用磨坊增長緩慢，而且不會顯著增加卡夫亨氏所追求的國際化。美贊臣的Ebitda利潤率差不多跟卡夫亨氏一樣高。金寶湯則擁有一個占據支配地位的股東，即多蘭斯家族。凱洛格的大部分股票由兩個信托基金持有，哪怕價格誘人，他們恐怕都會抗拒合并提議。

還有一個更大的因素，可能會阻礙卡夫亨氏斬獲一個亟需的收購目標：現如今，整個食品行業的管理模式都在“3G化”。自從3G收購亨氏以來，美國各大食品制造商相繼宣布將采取措施顯著降低日常開銷。3G奉行一種極其苛刻，被稱為“零基預算”的運營原則：在每年年初，各部門預算都假定為零，每一項提議的支出都必須重新證明其合理性。你知道嗎？在亨氏交易結束后不久，億滋國際就開始采用零基預算，并向華爾街大肆宣揚預期的成本節約額。去年夏天，當卡夫亨氏關閉工廠和裁員時，通用磨坊宣布將關閉5家工廠，并削減1400個崗位。

當3G剛剛挺進啤酒行業時，作為一位不知從哪里冒出的新貴，它并沒有受到業界重視。現在，食品行業的每個人都對它懷有敬畏之心，迅速調整以適應新形勢。鑒于目標公司能夠擠出的效率空間越來越少，3G模式可能不會像以前那樣有利可圖。

卡夫亨氏仍然可以找到機會，主要是因為競爭對手不能或者不會像它那樣游刃有余地踐行3G戰術。比如，幾乎每家大公司都在運營一些多余的項目，但他們很難收縮戰線，因為每個項目的背后都有一群支持者。相較之下，卡夫亨氏正在義無反顧地踐行其座右銘：“更少、更大、更好，”大刀闊斧地削減，將資源集中在他們認為最有效的地方。在他們看來，讓一些人失望，是值得付出的代價。

沒有多少公司會對包括高管在內的每位員工，實行每天區區50美元的差旅飲食津貼。但這樣做不僅會直接節省資金，還會讓管理人員從審理開支違規報告這類低價值工作時間中解脫出來。對于許多公司文化來說，這種極端的精英治理模式實在過于激進，但它恰恰吸引了許多3G想要的人才——他們所稱的“狂熱分子”。與3G合作長達20余年的管理大師吉姆·柯林斯相信，狂熱分子是3G成功的關鍵所在。他寫道，“這些癡迷于3G模式的人不會成為最受歡迎的人，因為他們經常恐嚇別人。但當狂熱分子聚在一起的時候，那種乘法效應是不可阻擋的。”

把這些政策結合在一起，并堅持不懈地實施，其結果就是一種無法比擬的運營優勢。主要競爭對手正在蠶食這種優勢，但卡夫亨氏仍然遙遙領先。

消費者口味

要想成為食品行業的百威英博，卡夫亨氏還要應對一個更大的威脅：消費者口味的長期轉變。對更新鮮、更健康食品日益劇增的偏愛，是每一家大型食品公司都必須嚴陣以待的危機。一些公司正在冒險采取對抗措施。在CEO丹尼斯·莫里森的帶領下，金寶湯正在豪賭新鮮食品，盡管它幾乎沒有這方面的。相較之下，以Spam午餐肉聞名于世的荷美爾公司表現得尤為出色。該公司現已開發出一系列與Spam大相徑庭的產品，比如花生醬零食，豌豆奶昔，還有一種用雞肉，藜麥和羽衣甘藍制成的漢堡。

但卡夫亨氏并不打算走這條路。在“更少、更大、更好”政策的指引下，這家公司正在創新重點放在一些“大賭注”上，致力于調整一些老牌食品的配方。比如，重新配制發明于1897年的Jell-O果凍，不再使用人工香料、染料和防腐劑；用更好的奶酪制造問世于1937年的起司通心粉；把發明于1918年的Velveeta奶酪切成更小塊。這些產品表現良好，但面對這樣一個令整個行業顫抖不已的現實——增長重心正在從這些產品所處的超市中心，強勁地轉移到新鮮食品所處的超市周邊地帶——這似乎是一種過于溫吞的反應。

創新不足是卡夫亨氏持續萎縮（而不是增長）的一大原因。2016年的收入可能比2015年減少約3%，而2015年的收入幾乎比卡夫和亨氏在2014年的合并收入減少近6%。致力于發揮資本最大效用的卡夫亨氏有意放棄了一些業務。但這個進程已基本完成。根據分析師的預測，在今明兩年，卡夫亨氏的通脹調整后收入將基本持平。

如今的卡夫亨氏生動地展現了3G模式的精髓。它或許是世界上最擅長通過削減成本，專注于最有前途的機會來創造價值的公司，但并不擅長實現內含式增長。在這種模型中，一家企業的業績增長往往集中在它剛剛被收購后的幾年中。分析師預計，今后幾年，卡夫亨氏的利潤增速將逐漸收窄。

這就是為什么鯊魚必須不停地游下去。即使食品行業正在經歷巨變，即使競爭對手逐漸讓自己成為略微不那么開胃的獵物，卡夫亨氏或許仍然能夠找到足夠大的收購目標，從而讓這種模式在未來幾年繼續維系下去。

但假如卡夫亨氏正式演變為食品行業的百威英博，再也無法找到收購對象，那將會發生什么事情？眼下，一種不動感情的理性分析顯示，這種風險還是很遙遠的事情，折現到現在的話，它幾乎可以忽略不計。（財富中文網）

作者：Geoff Colvin

譯者：Kevin

Predictably, 3G does not favor grand corporate digs. It moved Kraft out of its lush suburban Chicago campus into one--quarter the space, occupying five floors of a downtown skyscraper. The floor plan is mostly open—lots of desks, few offices.

So far this sounds like a typical private equity strategy of slashing costs at a portfolio company and preparing for an exit in five years or so. But 3G is far from typical. To understand its unique MO and what it might portend for Kraft Heinz and the food industry, consider its highest-profile investment, AB InBev.

Lemann and his two partners, Carlos Alberto Sicupira and Marcel Herrmann Telles, bought a Brazilian brewer called Brahma in 1989. Then Brahma bought a big competitor, Antarctica, in 1999, and merged it with the giant Belgian brewer Interbrew in 2004, creating InBev. Its brands included Bass, Beck’s, Labatt, Skol, Stella Artois, and many others. Then, in an act of breathtaking ambition, InBev bought the world’s biggest brewer, Anheuser-Busch, in 2008 for $52 billion. And then, even more remarkably, AB InBev bought the world’s No. 2 brewer, SAB Miller, in the third-largest corporate acquisition in business history, paying over $100 billion. The deal closed last fall and gives AB InBev some 200 brands, including three that are marketed globally: Budweiser, Corona, and Stella Artois. The company brews almost one-third of all the world’s beer.

Note a few key elements of how this was done:

? Unlike other PE firms, which have an exit in mind from the day they buy a company, Lemann and partners have stuck with their beer venture for 28 years and counting.

? While the mergers with Interbrew and Anheuser-Busch required the partners to dilute their stake, they still dominate the board, with four of the 15 directors.

? The pattern is buy, squeeze, repeat. The 3G managers developed extraordinary operating skills and greatly increased the value of every company they bought, but they were not great innovators. They achieved growth through acquisitions—not organically.

And there’s the rub: A central feature of this model is that it can’t work forever. It builds value only by buying more companies. “It’s like the shark that can’t stop swimming,” says a director of another major foodmaker. But AB InBev can’t apply the model further because it’s so big that antitrust authorities would never let it buy another significant brewer. So what’s next? Anyone who might know is not saying. Speculation in the industry is that since AB InBev can expand only outside its industry, its next target will be Coca-Cola.

Thus the great question: Is Kraft Heinz intended to be the AB InBev of food, dominating its industry so completely that the only remaining players are minor? 3G plays its cards very close to the vest—Hees declined to be interviewed for this article—and does not even offer earnings guidance to investors. But all signs say yes. The Brazil Journal blog reported in November that 3G is raising $8 billion to $10 billion to buy a global consumer goods company through Kraft Heinz. (3G won’t comment on the report, naturally.) Regardless of whether the report is accurate, an acquisition fits the pattern. It’s how 3G creates value. Plus, it’s about time. The firm bought Kraft two years after buying Heinz, and now it has been almost two years since the Kraft acquisition.

Investors are so sure that Kraft Heinz will make a big acquisition that they’ve priced one into the stock. By looking at analysts’ consensus forecast of profits, it’s possible to calculate a stock price that fairly reflects the present value of that future profit stream. When the EVA Dimensions consulting firm ran that analysis for Fortune on the basis of economic profit (after-tax operating profit minus a capital charge), it got a stock price for Kraft Heinz of $59. Actual recent stock price: $87.

The only way Kraft Heinz is worth that much is if it generates far more economic profit than anyone expects the company, as constituted, to generate. That is, investors are already betting on another big 3G-style acquisition. EVA Dimensions CEO Bennett Stewart concludes, “Kraft Heinz needs to add another Kraft Heinz, and at the right price—and the sooner the better.”

The whole U.S. food industry is speculating on who’s next. The leading candidate, somewhat ironically, is Mondelez, which would be remarrying its ex, Kraft, after only five years. Activist investor Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square hedge fund bought $5.6 billion of Mondelez stock just weeks after the Kraft Heinz merger closed, in what was widely regarded as a bet that Mondelez was 3G’s likeliest next target. (Ackman and Mondelez declined to comment for this article.)

For 3G, Mondelez’s attractions are several. Most important, it would help Kraft Heinz achieve one of its top priorities, expanding outside the slow-growing U.S. market. Kraft Heinz does only 30% of its business abroad; adding Mondelez would raise that number to 48% for the combined company. It would increase Kraft Heinz’s business in the fastest-growing food markets, the emerging economies, from 12% to 26% of sales. Mondelez also offers an attractive opportunity for 3G to work its operational magic because its Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) margin is only 18.3%, the lowest of the main potential targets. (The others are Kellogg, Campbell Soup, General Mills, and infant formula maker Mead Johnson.) That leaves a lot of room for Kraft Heinz to raise the margin toward its own towering 30%. One more advantage: Mondelez seems unlikely to resist a deal at the right price. Its board includes activist investor Nelson Peltz and Carlyle Group managing director Patrick Siewert, both ardent value seekers.

It’s easy to see why rumors of an imminent deal keep popping up, most recently in December (causing Mondelez’s stock price to jump 5%). But a closer look reveals at least one significant challenge to a deal. Mondelez’s widely dispersed global footprint could be a problem as well as an attraction. The 3G efficiency machine works best on big, coherent operations, not on far-flung operations in 165 countries. Dramatic improvements, which Kraft Heinz would need to produce, could be hard to achieve.

Other potential targets all pose problems as well. General Mills, which investors seem to consider the second-best bet for a deal, is slow growing and wouldn’t noticeably increase Kraft Heinz’s international exposure. Mead Johnson’s Ebitda margin is already almost as high as Kraft Heinz’s. Campbell Soup has a dominant shareholder, the Dorrance family, and much of Kellogg’s stock is held by two trusts, any of which might fight a merger, even at a good price.

Another, larger factor could frustrate Kraft Heinz’s search for a much-needed takeover target: The entire food industry is “3G-ing” itself before Kraft Heinz can do it to the companies. Ever since 3G bought Heinz, every major U.S. foodmaker has announced an initiative to reduce its overhead significantly. 3G embraces a demanding discipline called zero-based budgeting, in which every unit’s budget is assumed to be zero at the beginning of each year, and every proposed expense must be justified anew. What do you know? Soon after the Heinz deal, Mondelez adopted zero-based budgeting, trumpeting the expected savings to Wall Street. When Kraft Heinz was closing down plants and laying off workers last summer, General Mills announced it would close five plants and eliminate 1,400 jobs.

Back when 3G was rolling up the beer business, it was taken less seriously—an out-of-nowhere striver. Now everyone in the food business sees it coming and adapts. With fewer excesses left to wring out of target companies, the 3G model might not be as profitable as it used to be.

Kraft Heinz can still find opportunities, mostly because competitors can’t or won’t run the 3G playbook as well as Kraft Heinz does. The unsentimental reasoning with which the company closes plants is applied more broadly. For example, virtually every big company has too many projects underway, and they’re hard to pare back because each one has a constituency. Kraft Heinz trims them anyway under the mantra “fewer, bigger, better,” concentrating resources where they’re most effective; it’s worth the price of disappointing some people.

Not many companies would put everyone including executives on a simple $50 per diem for food while traveling. But doing so not only saves money directly, it also frees managers from low-value hours of inspecting expense reports for rule violations. The company’s extreme meritocracy is too intense for many corporate cultures, but it attracts exactly the people 3G wants— “fanatics,” as they put it. Management guru Jim Collins, who has worked with 3G for over 20 years, believes fanatics are key to 3G’s success. “Such obsessed people do not become the most popular people, as they often intimidate others,” he writes, “but when fanatics come together with other fanatics, the multiplicative effect is unstoppable.”

Combine those policies, relentlessly enforced, and the result is operational superiority. Major competitors are diminishing Kraft Heinz’s lead, but it’s still a big lead.

THE GREATER THREAT to Kraft Heinz becoming the AB InBev of food is its ability or inability to handle the long-term shift in consumer tastes. The growing preference for fresher, healthier products is a crisis for Big Food, and some players are taking risks to confront it aggressively. Campbell Soup under CEO Denise Morrison is betting heavily on fresh foods, though it has little expertise in that area. Hormel, famed for Spam, has performed extraordinarily well by creating such utterly un-Spam-like products as peanut butter snacks, a pea-based protein shake, and a food service burger made with chicken, quinoa, and kale.

But Kraft Heinz isn’t going that way. Under the policy of “fewer, bigger, better,” it’s focusing innovation on a few “big bets” that are mostly tweaks of famous, old Big Food products: Jell-O (invented in 1897) reformulated without artificial flavors, dyes, or preservatives; shelf-stable mac and cheese (1937) made with better cheese; Velveeta (1918) cut into smaller blocks. Those products are performing well, but they seem a tepid response to the industry-shaking reality of growth shifting strongly from the center of the supermarket, where those products reside, to the perimeter, where the fresh foods live.

Weak innovation is one reason Kraft Heinz has been shrinking, not growing. Revenue in 2016 was likely about 3% less than in 2015, which was almost 6% less than combined Kraft and Heinz revenue in 2014. The company gave up some business willingly as it focused on the best uses of capital. But that process is mostly done, and analyst forecasts for this year and next show inflation-adjusted revenue as flat.

Kraft Heinz today illustrates the essential 3G: quite possibly the world’s best at creating value by eliminating costs and focusing on the most promising opportunities, but not adept at growing the top line organically. In such a model, performance is front-loaded in the years right after an acquisition. Analysts expect Kraft Heinz profits to increase by smaller percentages each year.

That’s why the shark must keep swimming. Even as the food industry changes—and as competitors learn how to make themselves slightly less appetizing prey—Kraft Heinz can probably find enough acquisition targets to keep its model going for years.

But what if Kraft Heinz fully becomes the AB InBev of food and someday finds nothing left to buy? For now, the unsentimental, analytical response is to note that such a risk is a long way off, and discounted to the present, it doesn’t amount to much.?