36 ACQUISITIONS RECORDED IN JANUARY/FEBRUARY

2010 opened with a succession of huge food and drink transactions. Hot on the heels of Kraft buying Cadbury for £11.9 billion came Coca-Cola acquiring the North American operations of Coca-Cola Enterprises for $12.6 billion and PepsiCo completing the purchase of its top two bottlers. That wasn’t all. Nestlé bought Kraft’s frozen pizza business for $3.7 billion, Heineken targeted Femsa in a €3.8 billion deal and Entremont agreed to merge with Sodiaal. 12 of the 36 deals recorded for January and February were in soft drinks, of which 6 were water, 9 were in alcohol, of which 5 were beer, and 8 were in dairy. More than 25 countries were involved, the most active being the United States, France, United Kingdom and China.

Jan 10	Soft drinks	China Marine buys 80% of Shishi Xianghe in China	$27.8m
	Hot drinks	Italy’s Lavazza buys Ercom	25m euro sales
	Beer	Damm from Spain buys former Drink In factory in Portugal	€15.5m
	Water coolers	Eden Springs from Israel buys Hydropure of UK
	Food	Nestlé from Switzerland to buy Kraft frozen pizza business in US and Canada	$3.7bn
	Fruit Juice	Saudi Arabia’s Jadwa investment fund buys substantial stake in Gulf Union Foods Company
	Beer	Philippines’ San Miguel to buy 49% of Top Frontier
	Dairy	Fonterra of New Zealand to buy 51% of Saudi New Zealand Dairy Products Co from Saudi Dairy & Foodstuff Co	$33m
	Beer	Heineken from Netherlands to buy Femsa of Mexico, with Femsa gaining 20% stake in Heineken	3.8bn euro
	Food	Mizkan from Japan buys World Harbors Sauces of US	4.5bn euro
	Dairy	France’s Entremont to merge with Sodiaal sales	9m euro
	Dairy	Wexford Milk Producers of Ireland to buy 50% of Wexford Creamery from Dairy Crest of UK, increasing stake to 70%
	Confectionery	Kraft from US to buy Cadbury of UK	£11.9bn
	Soft drinks	UK Nichols buys Ben Shaws dispense business from Sunnyland of Belgium
	Bottled water	France’s Crédit Agricole bank buys over 100m euro33% of St Amand sales
	Flavours	Kohlberg Kravis Roberts private equity firm from US buys significant minority in Rudolf Wild of Germany
	Cheese	Four dairy co-operatives in Northeastern France to merge
	Cider	US Crispin Cider buys Fox Barrel Cider
Feb 10	Dairy	UK Arla Foods and North Milk Co-operative to sell Claymore Dairies to management team
	Cheese	Lactalis from France buys Forlasa of Spain
	Soft drinks	US Pepsi Bottling Group to buy Pepsi-Cola Bottling of Yuba City
	Ice cream	Swedish businessman Anders Müntzing to buy Diplom-Is of Sweden from Tine of Norway
	Water filtration	US Catterton private equity firm buys Sun Water Systems
	Bottled water	Nestlé from Switzerland buys 70% stake in Yunnan Dashan of China
	Confectionery	Raisio from Finland to buy Glisten in United Kingdom	£19.8m
	Dairy	China’s Rodobo completes purchase of three Beixue dairies
	Beer	Asia Pacific Breweries completes purchase of 68% interest in Multi Bintang Indonesia and 87% interest in Grande Brasserie de Nouvelle Caledonie from Heineken of Netherlands
	Beer	Heineken from Netherlands completes purchase of two Indian operations and Bintang brand from Asia Pacific Breweries
	Malt	Axéréal from France buys malt business from Greencore of Ireland	116m euro
	Bottled water	SABMiller from South Africa buys Rwenzori of Uganda
	Spirits	Mosaiq from Canada to buy Lemon Hart brand nights from Pernod Ricard of France
	Wine/spirits	Altia to buy Danish and Swedish brands and facilities from Pernod Ricard of France	82m euro
	Bottled water	US DS Waters buys Yosemite Waters
	Soft drinks	Coca-Cola Enterprises to buy Norway and Sweden operations of Coca-Cola Company	$822m
	Soft drinks	US Coca-Cola Company to buy North American operations of Coca-Cola Enterprises	$12.6bn
	Spirits	Diageo from UK to increase stake from 49% to 53% of Quanxing in China	$21m