Food industry M&A deals in December 2020 total $1.01bn globally

Total food industry M&A deals in December 2020 worth $1.01bn were announced globally, according to GlobalData’s deals database.

The value marked a decrease of 72.01% over the previous month and a drop of 60.03% when compared with the last 12-month average, which stood at $2.54bn.

Comparing deals value in different regions of the globe, Asia-Pacific held the top position, with total announced deals in the period worth $829.2m. At the country level, China topped the list in terms of deal value at $492.85m.

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

The top country in terms of M&A deals activity in December 2020 was the US with ten deals, followed by China with eight and Japan with two.

In 2020, as of the end of December 2020, food M&A deals worth $26.72bn were announced globally, marking an increase of 14.1% year on year.

Food industry M&A deals in December 2020: Top deals

The top five food industry M&A deals accounted for 95.4% of the overall value during December 2020.

The combined value of the top five food M&A deals stood at $966.81m, against the overall value of $1.01bn recorded for the month.

The top five food industry deals of December 2020 tracked by GlobalData were:

1) Inner Mongolia Mengniu Dairy (Group)Limited’s $458.1m acquisition of Shanghai Milkground Food TechLimited

2) The $295m acquisition of Greenfields Dairy Singapore by Freshness Holdings and Freshness

3) Whole Earth Brands’ $180m acquisition of WSO Investments

4) The $18.3m acquisition of Foshan Nanhai Runyuan Food by Foshan City Nanhai District Xinying Enterprise Planning and Guangnan HongLimited

5) Arnott’s Biscuits’ asset transaction with Freedom Foods Group for $15.42m.

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.