The US drinks industry saw a drop of 23.2% in overall deal activity during Q4 2020, when compared with the last four-quarter average, according to GlobalData’s deals database.

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A total of 43 deals worth $3.64bn were announced in Q4 2020, compared to the last four-quarter average of 56 deals.

Venture financing was the leading category in the quarter with 25 deals which accounted for 58.1% of all deals.

In second place was M&A with 16 deals, followed by private equity with two transactions, respectively accounting for 37.2% and 4.7% 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 $3.2bn, while private equity and venture financing deals totalled $308.01m and $130.39m, respectively.

The US drinks industry deals in Q4 2020: Top deals

The top five drinks deals accounted for 98.01% of the overall value during Q4 2020.

The combined value of the top five drinks deals stood at $3.57bn, against the overall value of $3.64bn recorded for the month.

The top five drinks industry deals of Q4 2020 tracked by GlobalData were:

1) Apollo Global Management’s $3bn private equity deal with Anheuser-Busch InBev

2) The $300m acquisition of SweetWater BrewingInc by Aphria

3) Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (CDPQ)’s $200m private equity deal with ZEVIA

4) The $51m venture financing of Kate Farms by Goldman SachsLLC and Kaiser Permanente Ventures

5) Anthony Pritzker, Brett Eldredge, Bryan Ezralow, Daniel Yergin, Jonathan Glaser, Kevin Love, Michael Meldman, Neal Moritz, Richard A. Gephardt, Stephen Curry and Victor Coleman’s venture financing of OXIGEN Beverages (USA) for $15m.

Verdict deals analysis methodology

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.

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.