Corona beer founder dies and leaves everyone in his Spanish village a millionaire

Update: Lucia Alajos, department chief of a cultural centre established by Antonio Fernandez in his hometown, has denied the story, telling Mashable:

“I can confirm he didn't leave money to his villagers in his will. His family recently opened his will and we actually don't know who got the money from the inheritance. But it's definitely not the town or his neighbours. Some family members have a house in the village, but they don't live there. They just come during the holidays."

Even so, Mr Fernandez, who has previously funded cultural institutions and churches in the village, did bequeath a large amount of money to his hometown. The late billionaire also leaves money to his family in Spain, whose annual visits to the village help keep its economy going. A silver-lining we can all take inspiration from.

A grim thought, but what would you hope to be left in a will when a loved one dies? A photo, maybe. A treasured family watch, perhaps. A couple million pounds would be nice though, wouldn’t it? Well that’s exactly what the Corona beer founder, Antonino Fernández, left 80 residents of a small Spanish village when he died at the age of 98 this August.

The 80 residents of Cerezales del Condado in north west Spain, his original hometown, have been left £169 million of Antonino’s fortune to share, which was acquired during his time as CEO of Corona between 1991 and 1997.  That leaves them with a cool £2m each.

Fernández first started working for the Grupo Modelo brewery in 1949, when he moved to Mexico aged 32.

One of the lucky few, Maximino Sanchez, who runs the only bar in the village told the Diario de León newspaper: "We never had any money before. I don’t know, what we would have done without Antonino."

This isn’t the only extreme act of kindness he’s done either, as the late Mr Fernández started a company in the province of León which provides jobs for people with disabilities, and replicated the same model in the Mexican state of Puebla.

So if you ever needed an excuse to crack open a Corona, now you’ve got one. Cheers Antonino, you absolute legend.