Private Equity Doesn’t Have A Sweet Tooth (Historically)
While we wait for a Cadbury counterbid that may never come, I ran some data to get an idea of private equity’s historic appetite for sweets. In the last five years, there have only been 11 US-based LBOs in the candy, confectionary, chewing gum and chocolate sectors, and they’ve all been pretty small (see chart below). That’s not necessarily for a lack of targets, either. In 2007, Campbell Soup sold its chain of Godiva chocolate stores for $750 million to a strategic buyer. At the time, reports claimed the confectioner received “several” private equity bids, but no firms were called out by name (and I have reason to believe those rumors were planted by the sell side). The company ultimately sold to Yildiz Holding, a Turkish candy company, for much less than the price it originally was reported to be seeking.
