並購:衝動合並

公司重新定位自己在一個複雜的市場,消費趨勢是多樣化,廣泛和可能發生變化。這不是夏天愛巢。結果所有的交易可能標誌著一個競爭加劇的時期。看著完成交易的範圍和製造提供了一個洞察每個公司的茶葉的閱讀。就在今天,更多的潛在交易似乎即將發生的。法國達能所謂的旗艦食品公司,再次謠傳組合的一部分。在法國和英國媒體報道,達能正考慮出售其餅幹段為47億美元。卡夫食品和凱洛格潛在競購,百事也在。雀巢公司,吉百利,帝亞吉歐,喜力,Intersnack在德國,聯合利華在並購交易和Frutarom都在最近幾個月,或被認為是尋找合適的投資。策略之一是打擊所有的增長趨勢顧問似乎令人傾倒。 Nestlé's acquisition of Novartis Medical Nutrition, is one obvious move as companies look toward health and nutritional products as a growth area. Another related strategy is a reaction to declining, stagnant or slow moving markets for foodproducts in home markets. Rising commodity and input prices, along with retailer pressure to keep prices down, are squeezing margins. Companies are being pushed to reposition themselves toward global diversification, where Asian and Eastern European markets seem to be high growth regions. Associated British Foods has taken a separate diversification strategy, one that bears watching. The company last month announced it would collaborate with BP and DuPont to begin producing biofuels, the demand for which has been blamed for much of the rise in price for cereals. Private equity has been playing a major role in the recent M&A activity. Shareholder activist Nelson Peltz has been a gadfly in the mix. Peltz, head of US-based Trian, a hedge fund, has been buying major stakes in companies such as Heinz, Cadbury and Kraft. In effect he is pushing management to do a better job and has already been responsible for changes at Heinz, where he now sits on the board, and at confectionery company Cadbury. Management has seemingly responded, althought they might claim such deals were already underway. At Cadbury several major changes in company structure have occurred since the purchase. The company has already announced the separation of its confectionery and beverage division, and pledged to spend about €666m on a cost reduction programme between 2007 and 2011. Cadbury has also made recent acquisitions in the Turkish and Romanian confectionery markets, and restructured operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa into two. Now Peltz will supposedly encourage Kraft to sell brands such as Post cereals and Maxwell House coffee in order to focus on improving its core frozen food and cheese businesses. His activism is a healthy sign in an industry that seems slow to respond to change, but is prized for reliable cash generation. Warren Buffett, chief executive and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, is also rumored to be on the lookout for food and beverage companies he can transform into better cash cows. Statistics from Barrington Associates indicate that mergers among the top-tier food companies have been virtually non-existent over the past three to five years because management was busy paying down debt and integrating operations. In the US for example M&A activity has grown from $6.76bn worth of deals in 2003, to $16.40bn last year. In the first half of this year $11.91bn worth of M&A activity has already occurred. For small and medium sized businesses that get left out of the deals, this will be a critical time as M&A activity heats up. An old African saying seems apt here: When elephants fight, it's the grass that gets hurt.艾哈邁德ElAmin是FoodProductionDaily.com的編輯器。他是一個商業記者專門開發問題,食品、酒、科技、國際業務和離岸金融。對本文發表評論請電子郵件ahmed.elamin@decisionnews.com。