The US drinks industry saw a rise of 88.2% in overall deal activity during Q4 2018, when compared with the last four-quarter average, according to GlobalData’s deals database.

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A total of 64 deals worth $810.03m were announced in Q4 2018, compared to the last four-quarter average of 34 deals.

Venture financing was the leading category in the quarter with 34 deals which accounted for 53.1% of all deals.

In second place was M&A with 29 deals, followed by private equity with one transactions, respectively accounting for 45.3% and 1.6% of overall deal activity in the country’s drinks industry during the quarter.

In terms of value of deals, M&A was the leading deal category in the US drinks industry with total deals worth $744.09m, while private equity deals totalled $65.94m.

US drinks industry deals in Q4 2018: Top deals

The top five drinks deals accounted for 92.8% of the overall value during Q4 2018.

The combined value of the top five drinks industry deals stood at $751.5m, against the overall value of $810.03m recorded for the quarter. The top announced US drinks industry deal tracked by GlobalData in Q4 2018 was SazeracInc’s $550m asset transaction with Diageo.

In second place was the $85m acquisition of Morinda Holdings by New Age Beverages and in third place was DS Services of America’s $78.5m acquisition of Mountain Valley Spring.

The $23m acquisition of Cisco Brewers by Craft Brew Alliance and Alex Rodriguez, betaworks ventures, CASSIUS Family, Chris Burch, Gary Vaynerchuk, GGV Capital IV, Greycroft Partners, Imaginary Ventures, Kate Hudson, Lakehouse Ventures, Michael Rapino, Nebari Ventures, Ron Burkle, Scooter Braun, Sophia Bush, Tim Armstrong and Venturing & Emerging Brands’ venture financing of Iris Nova for $15m 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. The term ‘acquisition’ refers to both completed deals and those in the bidding stage.

Verdict makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of its deals information. If you spot a mistake, or would like to notify us of a deal which should be included in this analysis, please email us at deals@globaldata.com

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.