Richard Hall is chairman of Zenith International. This is a personal blog and views expressed are his own.

9 Aug 2012

The 5 biggest food & drink acquisitions in July

The global economy may be under growing pressure, but the pace of mergers and acquisitions across food and drink shows no sign of slowing.

Indeed, July's 47 deals recorded by BevBlog.net include five above $750m:

  • $2,200m for Thai Beverage buying 22% of Fraser & Neave in Singapore.
  • $1,550m for Campbell Soup buying Bolthouse Farms in the US.
  • $974m for Joh A Benckiser buying Peet's Coffee & Tea in the US.
  • $880m for Luxembourg's Ardagh Packaging purchase of Anchor in the US.
  • $782m for South Africa's Mondi Group packaging takeover of Nordenia in Germany.

Of the month's 47, 13 were in soft drinks, 10 in alcohol, seven in dairy and seven in packaging.

22 involved the US, six the UK, five France and four each Italy and Switzerland. 18 other countries were affected, including Fiji, South Korea and Ukraine.

The full list is available in a searchable database by clicking here.

Richard Hall is chairman of Zenith International