Hints and tips:
Popularity of craft brands and Mexican imports were already eroding appeal of country’s former best-selling beer
Private equity has minted fortunes in the sector
...Whole Foods was bought by Amazon shortly after for $13.7bn....
...Iceland Foods raised more than £250m at a coupon of about 4 per cent this year....
...A top 10 shareholder in Just Eat has said it will vote against the food-ordering company’s planned £9bn merger with Takeaway.com, as investors hold out for a higher bid....
...Alphaville was recently flipping through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) data dump from the US Treasury and came across loans for two entities called Delight Holdco I LLC and Delight Holdco II LLC....
Steve Easterbrook lost his job after relationship with colleague but kept stock options
...“The company has been woefully late to participate in some of the key new trends that have driven growth in food and beverages, allowing incipient brands and more focused competitors to capture market share...
...Three months ago, sales weakness at Pinnacle Foods spooked Wall Street, igniting a sharp decline in shares....
...He brings a wealth of experience in the food industry, as well as a fresh perspective on the opportunities and challenges before us....
..."Even when accounting for the headwinds in the packaged food industry, Campbell has substantially trailed peers as a result of these missteps.”...
...A good example recently was Jana Partners engineering the $13.7bn sale of grocer Whole Foods to Amazon in 2017, earning itself $300m in gains for an investment it made only a few months earlier....
...Arkansas-based Tyson said it will pay $2.16bn in cash to buy Keystone Foods from Brazil’s Marfrig Global Foods....
...It acknowledged that its efforts to appeal to younger customers and move into fresh food had failed to pay off....
...The plan included proposals to sell its fresh foods and international businesses, refocusing the group on its traditional domestic packaged brands....
...The food group, whose brands include Pepperidge Farms biscuits, Prego pasta sauce and Goldfish crackers, has attempted to move into healthier foods, but those efforts have fallen short so far....
...The combination would create a packaged food giant with about $11bn in annual sales and bolster Conagra’s presence in the resurgent frozen foods market....
...Frozen foods have chalked up positive organic sales growth in recent months. Millennials are embracing frozen foods as a healthy option....
...Conagra Brands, maker of Peter Pan peanut butter and Swiss Miss cocoa powder, has agreed to buy Pinnacle Foods, the company behind brands including Birds Eye frozen foods and Aunt Jemima pancakes, in a deal...
...Sally Grimes, group president of prepared foods at Tyson, said: “These are great assets with outstanding team members; however, we’re focused on expanding Tyson Foods’ leadership position in protein....
...The purchase continues something of an shareholder activism-in-food theme for Jana, which in February took a holding in fast-food chain Jack in the Box, and last year disclosed a stake in Bloomin’ Brands...
...On Monday, PepsiCo’s outgoing chief executive Indra Nooyi announced the food and beverage company would spend $3.2bn to buy SodaStream, the Israeli maker of home sparkling-water dispensers....
...Opposition from some of Rite Aid’s biggest shareholders about the terms scuppered the proposed acquisition by private equity backed Albertsons, which would have created a national food and drugs retail powerhouse...
...Activist fund Jana Partners is sinking its teeth into Jack in the Box, saying the US fast-food chain’s shares are “undervalued and represent an attractive investment opportunity.”...
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