Allied Beverages Inc., a major Southern California beer distributor, is now a unit of the largest company in the industry. Reyes Beverage Group announced Friday afternoon that its acquisition of the Sylmar distributor closed. Neither party has disclosed any financials, but industry experts have pegged the deal at roughly $225 million. Allied Beverages was founded in 1953 and operates from a 90,000-square-foot warehouse at 13287 Ralston Ave., where it has been for more than 30 years. “Our family is proud of the legacy we are leaving in the community, and we are pleased to hand over the reigns to the exceptionally capable and committed team at Harbor Distributing,” said Kevin Williams, president of Allied in a statement. Mark Smith, president of Harbor Distributing in Anaheim will take over as president of Allied. Harbor falls under the Reyes Beverage Group, a unit of Reyes Holdings LLC of Rosemont, Ill. Reyes is by far the largest beer distributor in the nation, moving well over 100 million cases of beer annually. The Allied purchase will add about 13 million cases to that number. The only rival of similar size is Anheuser-Busch InBev, which owns or controls much of its own distribution. Allied brings a top client list to Reyes, including contracts with MillerCoors LLC, Heineken USA Inc. and Crown Imports LLC. Crown is a unit of Constellation Brands Inc. of Victor, N.Y. and imports the popular Mexican brands Corona and Modelo, manufactured by Grupo Modelo in Mexico.
