Acquisition of Kellanova by Mars

What if the company that houses some of the favorite snacks such as Pringles, Cheeze-It and Kelloggs among several is under process of being acquired by the sweet shop Mars!? I analyzed the acquisition of Kellanova (former Kelloggs) by Mars, Incorporated. To give a background of the deal, on August 13, 2024, Mars, Incorporated and Kellanova entered into a definitive agreement under which Mars has agreed to acquire Kellanova for a total consideration of $35.9 Billion at a premium of 33% to Kellanova’s unaffected 52-week high as of August 2, 2024. The total valuation is at acquisition multiple of 16.4x LTM adjusted EBITDA as of June 29, 2024. The deal is expected to significantly increase leverage of Mars and has led to downgrading the issuer to ‘A’ from ‘A+.’ With several strategic synergies, the deal is focused on enhancing financial stability to boost investor confidence. The acquisition is expected to close first half of 2025 with a successful integration of Kellanova. One of the most significant challenges was valuing Mars. Mars is a privately held company with very little or next to none financial information available in public domain. I also looked-up databases such as Preqin and Crunchbase, which are meant for privately held companies. Further, the date of valuation of acquisition of June 29, 2024 posed unique challenge to conduct valuation analysis as of that date. I have derived valuation financial parameters and conducted valuation of the target company as of June 28, 2024 and June 29, 2024 based on availability of financial information. The valuations of target company Kellanova and purchasing company Mars have been done using current and forward valuation multiples. The acquisition analysis has been developed by leveraging financial information available over databases such as #CapitalIQ #LSEGWorkspace #BloombergCapitalMarkets倘若坐拥品客（Pringles）、芝味脆（Cheeze-It）等多款热门零食品牌的企业，正被糖果巨头玛氏（Mars）收购，将会是怎样的场景？本次分析针对玛氏公司（Mars, Incorporated）收购凯洛纳（Kellanova，前身为凯洛格（Kelloggs））的交易展开。关于本次交易的背景信息如下：2024年8月13日，玛氏公司与凯洛纳正式签署最终收购协议，玛氏将以总计359亿美元的对价完成收购，该对价较凯洛纳2024年8月2日的52周未受扰动最高价溢价33%。本次收购的总估值对应2024年6月29日止最近十二个月经调整后息税折旧摊销前利润（EBITDA）的16.4倍。本次交易预计将大幅提升玛氏的财务杠杆率，并促使其主体信用评级从‘A+’下调至‘A’。凭借多项战略协同效应，本次交易旨在强化财务稳定性，以提振投资者信心。本次收购预计于2025年上半年完成交割，并顺利实现凯洛纳的业务整合。本次分析面临的核心挑战之一为玛氏的估值工作：玛氏为私有企业，公开渠道可获取的财务信息极少甚至近乎空白。为此，笔者查阅了普林（Preqin）、Crunchbase等面向私有企业的商业数据库。此外，以2024年6月29日作为估值基准日也为估值分析带来了独特挑战。基于现有财务信息的可得性，笔者以2024年6月28日及2024年6月29日为基准日，推导了估值财务参数并完成了标的公司的估值测算。本次分析采用当期及前瞻性估值乘数，对标的公司凯洛纳及收购方玛氏进行了估值。本次收购分析依托CapitalIQ、LSEGWorkspace、彭博资本市场（Bloomberg Capital Markets）等数据库的公开财务信息构建完成。