has been acquired by
Cascadia Capital, an investment bank serving middle market clients globally, today announced it acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Carolina Beverage Group (“Carolina Beverage”), a leading North American contract beverage manufacturer and portfolio company of SunTx Capital Partners, in its acquisition by Cold Spring Brewing Co. (“Cold Spring”). Cascadia previously advised Cold Spring on its sale to Brynwood Partners.
Founded in 1997, Carolina Beverage is a leading North American contract beverage manufacturer operating facilities in Mooresville, North Carolina and Fort Worth, Texas. Carolina Beverage offers industry leading manufacturing capabilities, serving its customers with the widest array of blending, filling, and specialty packaging solutions available in North America. Its customers include industry leaders in the ready-to-drink functional beverage category, including energy drinks, teas, value-added waters, malt beverages, and distilled spirits.
“Having represented Cold Spring in 2017, we were confident Carolina Beverage would garner strong interest given their reputation as a market leader,” commented Bryan Jaffe, Managing Director at Cascadia Capital. “Food and beverage contract manufacturing has been a safe haven of sorts for private equity, given the prevailing valuations on branded assets. The ability of Brynwood Partners to approach this process with a strategic mentality differentiated their interest from other buyers.”
Erik Einwalter, Senior Vice President at Cascadia Capital added, “These businesses trade based on the complexity of their operations, the end-markets to which they are tied, and the financial performance they are able to produce. Properly positioning Carolina Beverage on each of those attributes yielded numerous exit options, as buyers from varied categories sought to enter the segment. Cold Spring represented the best opportunity to accelerate both assets.”
The acquisition of Carolina Beverage represents another successful transaction for Cascadia’s Consumer & Retail team in the Food & Beverage sector. This transaction represents the sixth facility based food and beverage client sold by Cascadia in the last 12 months. Recent transactions include the sale of California Natural Products, the acquisition of Boyd’s Coffee and the acquisition of Tillamook Country Smoker.