Constellation Brands CEO Weighs In On Meiomi Acquisition, Expects The beer Business To Grow At Same Pace As Q1 For The Year

Constellation Brands, Inc. STZ reported better than expected first-quarter results on Wednesday. The company declared an EPS of $1.18 for the quarter, compared to an EPS of $1.03 it reported for the same quarter last year. Revenue for the quarter rose 7 percent year-over-year to $1.63 billion. The company also announced that it will be buying Meiomi wine brand for almost $315 billion.

Rob Sands, Constellation Brands President and CEO, was on CNBC recently to weigh in on the results and the acquisition of Meiomi.

Meiomi: Fastest Growing Brand

"The wine category is growing quite nicely," Sands began. "Wine and spirits as well as imported beer and craft is taking share from really domestic beer and Meiomi and the pinot noir category is really one of the fastest growing segments in the wine industry. Meiomi for instance grew 50 percent in the latest 52-weeks in the IRI channels. So, this is one of the fastest growing brands in both wine and alcoholic beverage in general."

Growth In Beer Will Continue

Sands was asked how much longer does he anticipate the company's beer business to grow the way it has been growing over the past few quarters. He replied, "Yeah, well we actually see this continuing for the foreseeable future. Today in our release we increased our guidance both in terms of sales and earnings.

"And in particular on the beer side we increased our guidance and said that we now expect our beer business to grow double-digits for this year. So, first-quarter the growth has been even beyond our own expectations and at this point we don't foresee that growth rate changing dramatically as we go through the year," Sands concluded.