The Food and beverage M&A Event of the Year 2022: Super combination, breaking the game and reborn from Nirvana

It remains to be seen whether Mondelez can win the hearts of consumers on the healthy snack circuit.

Transaction size: 18.4 million euros (equivalent to about 130 million yuan)

Disclosure date: October 2022

On 23 October 2022, Ausnutria issued an acquisition announcement announcing that its indirect wholly-owned subsidiary Ausnutria B.V had entered into a share purchase agreement with Dairy Goat Holland B.V in connection with the acquisition. Ausnutria's indirect wholly-owned subsidiary will acquire 50% of Dutch feta cheese company Amalthea Group for €18.4 million.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Amalthea Group will officially become an Ausnutria associate, but its financial results, assets and liabilities will not be incorporated into the Company's consolidated financial statements.

According to public information, Amalthea B.V (a subsidiary of the Amalthea Group) was established in the Netherlands in 1990 and has been in the development history for more than 30 years, with a market share of about 50% in the Dutch cheese sector and half of the Dutch cheese market.

Through this partnership with Amalthea Group, Ausnutria is expected to increase its supply of fresh goat milk by 45,000 tons per year, and will also enable Ausnutria to control 45 to 50 percent of the Dutch goat milk source, and even help it expand its product portfolio from sheep milk powder to cheese products.

In fact, Ausnutria's expansion into the goat milk sector is not a whim, prior to this, Ausnutria has been working with Amalthea for many years, and the two have formed a joint venture whey powder company - DPC. In addition, as early as 2011, Ausnutria acquired 51% of the shares of the Dutch Hepnok Group through the merger and acquisition. Within 10 years, Ausnutria's goat milk brand "Jabot" has successfully built itself into the world's largest goat milk brand with sales of 3.348 billion yuan [5].

The layout of the whole industry chain of Ausnutria milk will further build a high goat milk "moat" and consolidate its "leader" position.

Transaction size: $1.35 billion (equivalent to about 9.1 billion yuan)

Disclosure date: December 2022

On December 19, 2022, Mondelez International signed an agreement with the European chewing gum and confectionery manufacturer Pfegti Van Meirer Group to sell its developed market chewing gum businesses in the United States, Canada and Europe to Pfegti Van Meirer for $1.35 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2023.

At the same time, Mondelez International will continue to operate its chewing gum business in emerging markets in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and named the flash brand, including the Chinese market.

As early as May 2022, Mondelez said it would divest its chewing gum business in developed markets, and intends to divest the "Holz" brand globally, the deal does not involve the Chinese market.

According to Euromonitor data, in the statistical period from 2020 to 2022, in terms of retail sales, Mondelez Daemai's gum market share in China has increased year by year, from 13.3% to 15.0%, which is also one of the main reasons for Mondelez to retain gum business in China.

But whether that growth can be sustained remains a question mark. Public data show that the retail sales of chewing gum fell from 15.432 billion yuan in 2019 to 13.241 billion yuan in 2021, and the size of China's chewing gum market is shrinking year by year.

To that end, Mondelez is reaffirming its Strategic Plan 2030 to advance the company's strategic portfolio reshaping to enable the company to focus more on its core categories. "From our perspective, Mondelez's revenues and profits will be stronger if we just focus on doing well in the cookie and chocolate business," said Mondelez CEO Pique Fung.

Transaction size: 180 million US dollars (equivalent to about 1.2 billion yuan)

Disclosure date: July 2022

On July 7, 2022, Xianle Health (34.010, 0.57, 1.70%) announced a series of announcements to acquire 80% of the equity of Best Formula Sinc., a leading North American contract manufacturer of nutritional supplements.

The amount to be paid in this transaction is approximately $180 million; In addition, Xianle Health intends to raise no more than 1.35 billion yuan by issuing shares to specific objects for the acquisition of 80% of the equity of Best Formulations and supplementary working capital. On January 6, 2023, Xianle Health successfully completed the cross-border acquisition.

Established in 1986, Best Formulations is mainly engaged in the production and sales of nutritional supplements such as vitamins, minerals and special nutrition products, and has become one of the top three softgel CDMO enterprises in the United States. Data show that from 2019 to 2021, the revenue of Best Formulations softgel products accounted for 73.7%, 76.0% and 70.2% of the total revenue, respectively.

This acquisition is a key measure to complete the layout of the local supply chain in the United States and achieve the "internationalization" strategy of Xianle Health, and to open up the mainstream brand market channels through the rapid establishment of the local manufacturing base in the United States, and form complementary advantages with the company.