Buffett puts money in ketchup, buys Heinz for $23 bn

Soon after that encounter, two of 3G's managing partners traveled to Pittsburgh to have lunch with Heinz CEO William Johnson and raise the prospect of buying the 144-year-old company.

"The offer was such that I simply felt compelled to take it to my board,'' Johnson said at a news conference Thursday.

Over the next several weeks, Johnson said, the board worked out details of the transaction.

Berkshire is putting up $12.12 billion in return for half of the equity in Heinz, as well as $8 billion of preferred shares that pay 9 percent, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 3G Capital will run Heinz, and Berkshire will be the financing partner.

By taking the company private, Johnson said, Heinz will have the flexibility to react more quickly without the pressure of satisfying investors with quarterly earnings reports. The company's push to go global began more than a decade ago, and about two-thirds of its revenue already comes from outside the US

Heinz is increasingly focusing on emerging markets, where it expects to get about a quarter of its sales this year. Like other packaged food companies, it is betting that staking an early claim in countries with multiplying ranks of middle-class customers will secure its own future.

Although ketchup and sauces still account for just under half its sales, Heinz has expanded over the years to include a much broader array of products across 200 countries, including ABC soy sauce in Indonesia, Quero tomato sauces and vegetables in Brazil and Complan nutritional drinks in India. In 2010, the company bought Foodstar, which makes Master brand soy sauce and fermented bean curd in China.

The business reaches back to 1869, when Henry John Heinz and neighbor L. Clarence Noble began selling grated horseradish, bottled in a clear glass to showcase its purity. It wasn't until 1876 that the company introduced its flagship product, America's first commercial ketchup.

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