Drinks industry M&A deals in Q4 2018 total $6.6bn globally

Total drinks industry M&A deals in Q4 2018 worth $6.6bn were announced globally, according to GlobalData’s deals database.

The value marked an increase of 34% over the previous quarter and a drop of 35.5% when compared with the last four-quarter average, which stood at $10.24bn.

Comparing deals value in different regions of the globe, Europe held the top position, with total announced deals in the period worth $5.54bn. At the country level, the United Kingdom topped the list in terms of deal value at $5.38bn.

In terms of volumes, North America emerged as the top region for drinks industry M&A deals globally, followed by Europe and then Asia-Pacific.

The top country in terms of M&A deals activity in Q4 2018 was the United States with 29 deals, followed by the United Kingdom with five and Australia with four.

In 2018, as of the end of Q4, drinks industry M&As worth $37.5bn were announced globally, marking an increase of 114.3% year on year.

Drinks industry M&A deals in Q4 2018: Top deals

The top five drinks industry M&A deals accounted for 97.4% of the overall value during Q4 2018.

The combined value of the top five drinks industry M&A deals stood at $6.43bn, against the overall value of $6.6bn recorded for the quarter.

The top announced drinks industry M&A deal tracked by GlobalData in Q4 2018 was Unilever’s $5.36bn asset transaction with GlaxoSmithKline.

In second place was SazeracInc’s asset transaction with Diageo for $550m and in third place was China Resources Breweries’ $300.59m acquisition of Heineken Brewery (Guangzhou), Heineken Brewery (Hainan), Heineken Brewery (Zhejiang), Heineken (China) Management Services, Heineken (Shanghai) and Heineken Trading (Shanghai).

Grupa Zywiec’s $130.95m acquisition of Browar Namyslow and New Age Beverages’ acquisition of Morinda Holdings for $85m held fourth and fifth positions, respectively.

This analysis considers only announced and completed deals from the GlobalData financial deals database and excludes all terminated and rumoured deals. Country and industry are defined according to the headquarters and dominant industry of the target firm.

GlobalData tracks real-time data concerning all merger and acquisition, private equity/venture capital and asset transaction activity around the world from thousands of company websites and other reliable sources.

More in-depth reports and analysis on all reported deals are available for subscribers to GlobalData’s deals database.