Food for Thought
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Year-End Review Food for Thought Overview, Analysis, and Trends in the Food and Food Retailing Industries William Blair Table of Contents William Blair’s Industry Update – Calendar 2014 .......................................................................................................................................................................... 1 Selected Monthly M&A Activity – December ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 2 Noteworthy M&A Activity – LTM ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Historical M&A Trends in the Food and Food Retailing Industries .................................................................................................................................... 10 Volume Trends ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10 Participant Trends.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 11 Valuation Trends ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 12 Public Company Trading Statistics ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 Food Production Companies ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 13 Food Ingredients Companies ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 14 Beverage Production Companies .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Food Retail Companies......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 Convenience Store Companies ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 Same-Store Growth – Food & Convenience Retail ....................................................................................................................................................................... 16 U.S. Public Equity Financing Summary – LTM ............................................................................................................................................................................... 17 IPOs ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 17 Follow-Ons ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 17 Selected Upcoming Industry Events ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 18 General Market Update ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 20 Quarterly Market Update – All Industries........................................................................................................................................................................................ 20 Domestic M&A Market Summary ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 21 U.S. Activity Trends ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 21 U.S. Valuation Trends ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 22 U.S. Equity Capital Markets Summary .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 23 Debt Capital Markets Summary ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 24 William Blair Food & Beverage and Food Convenience & Retail Investment Banking .............................................................................................. 25 Recent William Blair Consumer & Retail Transactions ............................................................................................................................................................. 27 William Blair Consumer & Retail Coverage .................................................................................................................................................................................... 28 Notes .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 29 Disclosures ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 30 Food For Thought Table of Contents William Blair William Blair’s Industry Update – Calendar 2014 Twelve months ago, we finished one of the most active years for food retail in over a decade. Both the M&A and equity markets were particularly robust for food retailers, and we predicted that 2014 was going to continue that trend. While the M&A market has shown continued strength, the publicly traded food retailers had a tougher time, as inflationary pressures, particularly on beef and dairy, have in turn pressured margins, and competitive factors from within—and outside—the food retail industry affect customer traffic and basket size. M&A activity remained robust in food retail, and after a noticeable hiatus in convenience stores, headline M&A transactions returned. Four notable food retail transactions hit the wires in 2014: 1) the sale of Safeway to Albertsons in March for $8 billion; 2) the sale of Grocery Outlet to Hellman & Friedman from Berkshire Partners in September; 3) the sale of Dean & DeLuca, an iconic brand in the upscale food retail market, to a Thai property developer, Pace Development, in November for $144 million; and 4) the purchase of 146 Safeway, Vons, Pavilions, and Albertsons stores by Haggen in December. The last transaction caught the industry by surprise, as Haggen, an 18-store operator in Bellingham, Washington, backed by Comvest Partners, bought a surprising number of stores that were being divested as a result of an FTC order to allow the Safeway/Albertsons transaction to proceed. This immediately makes Haggen a player in the West Coast food retail market, with 164 stores in five states; it does not come without risk, however, as 83 of these stores are in highly competitive markets in California. In convenience stores, two transactions punctuated the landscape, including the sale of Susser to Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of the Sunoco brand, for $2.3 billion in April, and the sale of The Pantry to Couche-Tard for $1.7 billion in December. In the capital markets, public food retailers faced headwinds from both rising food costs and strong competitive factors. William Blair’s food retail group was down 4.3% for 2014, and some of the strongest performers of 2013 saw headwinds affect their stock prices in 2014. Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, which saw a 122% increase in 2013, declined 33.6% in 2014, and Sprouts Farmers Market, up 110% following