PepsiCo has acquired carbonated-drinks maker SodaStream for $3.2 billion.
The American owner of the eponymous Coca-Cola rival as well as Tropicana, Frito-Lay, and other less-than-healthy snack foods and drinks will pay $144 per share in cash for Israel’s SodaStream—almost 11% higher than its Aug. 17 closing price. SodaStream’s shares were already up more than 80% this year.
The deal is a last hurrah for PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, who announced earlier this month she will step down in October after 12 years at the helm. She took the company into more international markets and into healthier products, recently buying Bare Foods, which makes baked fruit and vegetable treats like Granny Smith apple chips. Half of the company’s revenues now comes from its healthier products, up from 38% when she took over in 2006 (paywall).
For her final act, Nooyi will push PepsiCo to make its products inside the homes of its customers. ”We get to play in a business—home beverages—where we don’t play,” PepsiCo CFO Hugh Johnston told CNBC.
Part of SodaStream’s recent rise in popularity is due to the rise of flavored sparkling water like the millennial favorite, LaCroix, and even just plain old seltzer. From 2008 to 2017, US sales of unflavored carbonated water more than doubled to 770 million gallons, according to data from research firm Euromonitor.
SodaStream was founded in the UK in 1903 to make sodas at home and was bought by Israeli firm Soda-Club in 1996. SodaStream went public in 2010—at a mere $20 a share.