US food industry sees a rise of 8.7% in deal activity in February 2020

The US food industry saw a rise of 8.7% in overall deal activity during February 2020, when compared with the last 12-month average, according to GlobalData’s deals database.

A total of 25 deals worth $543.64m were announced in February 2020, compared to the 12-month average of 23 deals.

M&A was the leading category in the month in terms of volume with 13 deals which accounted for 52% of all deals.

In second place was venture financing with nine deals, followed by private equity with three transactions, respectively accounting for 36% and 12% of overall deal activity in the country’s food industry during the month.

In terms of value of deals, M&A was the leading deal category in the US food industry with total deals worth $425m, while venture financing and private equity deals totalled $85.64m and $33m, respectively.

US food industry deals in February 2020: Top deals

The top five food industry deals accounted for 92.8% of the overall value during February 2020.

The combined value of the top five food deals stood at $504.7m, against the overall value of $543.64m recorded for the month.

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

1) Dairy Farmers of America’s $425m asset transaction with Dean Foods

2) The $28m venture financing of Alpha Foods by AccelFoods, Blue Horizon Ventures, Green Monday and New Crop Capital

3) NextWorld Evergreen, LP.’s $18.7m venture financing of Van Leeuwen Ice Cream

4) The $18m private equity deal with Ellenos by Equilibra Partners Management

5) Manna Tree Partners’ private equity deal with Verde Farms 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.