Met dalende inkomsten in het Westen richten tabaksfabrikanten zich meer op Afrika, Zuid Amerika en het Caribisch gebied, waar de groeiende bevolking met stijgende inkomens nieuwe kansen biedt.
Grupo León Jimenes, C. por A., is one of the largest companies in the Dominican Republic with annual revenue of approximately $600 million and is headquartered in Santo Domingo. This corporation enjoys virtual monopolies in two local markets—beer and cigarettes—as well as having banking and printing operations. It brews Presidente, Bohemia, Miller and Heineken beers, and makes Marlboro cigarettes. It is also the parent company of La Aurora S.A., the maker of Aurora and León Jimenes cigars.
Because his father, Antonio León, was a tobacco grower, the 20-something-year-old son could rely on abundant raw material to make cigars for the local market. In 1903 Eduardo León Jimenes started processing tobacco and opened a cigar factory in Guazumal, making La Auroras cigars.
Later in 1963 they entered into cigarette manufacturing and six years later they became Philip Morris representatives in the DR. This partnership increased the family's wealth considerably and they became one of the most prominent families in Central America and the Caribbean.
In the 1980's they entered the alcoholic beverages industrial sector with Cervecería Bohemia. After being a perennial No.2 in sales they acquired and merged their brewery with famous Cervecería Nacional Dominicana maker of Cerveza Presidente giving them a nominal monopoly on the beer market. Later in the 2010's Ambev acquired the majority equity of Cervecería Nacional Dominicana for US$1.5B. Now they control nearly 98 percent of the market. Presently, León Jimenes brews Heineken and Miller beer, but its king brand is Presidente, which can be found almost anywhere in the Dominican Republic.
They were owners of Banco León which merged with Banco BHD to form Banco BHDLEÓN 3rd largest dominican bank after Banco Popular and Banreservas.
The Leon Jimenes family is famously low-key and conservative. It's members avoid the press or any exposure and save their cultural legacy thru the Fundación Leon Jimenes.
The family has always put a premium on the education of its younger siblings sending them to the usual first rate ivy league educational centers of the United States.
The Leon Jimenes family wealth is more that 4 generations old, so they are 1 of the 12 'core' families that constitute 'old money' in the Dominican Republic.
