Unilever acquires Best Foods (1989)
In one of the largest food-industry deals of the 1980s, Unilever bought Best Foods, the American company behind brands like Kraft, Oscar Mayer, and Jell-O, for about $11.3 billion. The transaction was structured with significant leverage on the Best Foods side, and it became a landmark in cross-border, highly leveraged corporate finance. It was a defining test of whether a foreign parent could successfully absorb a large, leveraged American consumer business.
Why it mattered
The deal showed how PE and large corporates could combine to build global brands, and it normalized multi billion dollar cross border acquisitions. It also demonstrated the power of synergies: the combined company could sell the same brands in both the US and Europe, which became a template for many later global consumer deals.