Food industry M&A deals in Q1 2019 total $6.17bn globally

Total food industry M&A deals in Q1 2019 worth $6.17bn were announced globally, according to GlobalData’s deals database.

The value marked a decrease of 39.1% over the previous quarter and a drop of 42.9% when compared with the last four-quarter average, which stood at $10.81bn.

Comparing deals value in different regions of the globe, North America held the top position, with total announced deals in the period worth $2.3bn. At the country level, the US topped the list in terms of deal value at $2.03bn.

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

The top country in terms of M&A deals activity in Q1 2019 was the US with 30 deals, followed by Canada with eight and the UK with seven.

In 2019, as of the end of Q1 2019, food M&A deals worth $6.17bn were announced globally, marking a decrease of 31.9% year on year.

Food industry M&A deals in Q1 2019: Top deals

The top five food industry M&A deals accounted for 64.9% of the overall value during Q1 2019.

The combined value of the top five food industry M&A deals stood at $4bn, against the overall value of $6.17bn recorded for the quarter. The top announced food industry M&A deal tracked by GlobalData in Q1 2019 was Ferrero International’s $1.3bn asset transaction with Kellogg.

In second place was the $1.27bn acquisition of Dairy Crest Group by Saputo Dairy and in third place was Hongkong Jingang Trade Holding Co’s $588m acquisition of Westland Co-operative Dairy.

The $432.24m acquisition of Clover Industries by MilcoProprietary and Nisshin Seifun Group’s acquisition of Allied Mills for $411.25m 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.

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.