53 ACQUISITIONS IN NOVEMBER

November was a big month for food and drink industry transactions, with 53 recorded on the bevblog.net database, including 5 reaching sums over $1,000 million:

• $4,660 million for Canada’s Onex private equity group to buy the SIG Combibloc packaging business based in Switzerland from Rank of New Zealand.

• £2,900 million for Turkey’s Ulker to purchase the UK’s United Biscuits from the Blackstone and PAI private equity groups.

• $2,900 million sales from the combination of SABMiller, Gutsche Family Investments and Coca-Cola in forming a soft drinks joint venture in Africa.

• $1,450 million for JBS Australia to buy Australia’s Primo meat business.

• $1,250 million for Canada’s Cott to purchase the DS Services bottled water business in the United States.

Among the 53 total, 11 were in soft drinks, 10 were in alcohol, 6 in dairy, 6 in packaging, 5 in ingredients and 5 in meat.

27 countries were affected, with 2 changes from the usual pattern. A higher proportion were international and the United States was less dominant. The US participated in 21 to 17 for the UK and then a large gap before Spain on 5, Canada on 4, Switzerland on 4, then Australia, France, Germany and India on 3 each.