The announcement on Wednesday that Mars Inc. would be purchasing snack producer Kellanova (K) for $36 billion helped to lift the stock prices of the firms that dominate America’s grocery store centre aisles.
With a rise of more than 7%, Kellanova was the S&P 500’s best-performing stock during morning trading on Wednesday. ConAgra Brands (CAG), the parent company of Orville Redenbacher, General Mills (GIS), and Campbell Soup (CPB) were among the other winners. With the S&P 500 ticking upward, all three saw a gain of roughly 2%. Just now, the consumer staples industry beat the overall index.
Late last year, the Pop-Tart and Pringles manufacturer Kellanova was split off from cereal manufacturer Kellogg. The surviving cereal company, WK Kellogg (KLG), whose shares have lately increased by more than 4%, is known for producing cereal aisle mainstays like Frosted Flakes and Rice Krispies.
The spin-off coincided with a wave of historic American companies splitting up into three distinct businesses. Notable examples of these include Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), which split its consumer and pharmaceutical businesses in the same year, and GE, which started splitting into three separate companies in 2023 after years of struggling with burdensome operations and a mountain of debt.
The Kellanova acquisition by Mars coincides with American consumers trying to recover from the greatest inflationary wave to hit the nation since the 1980s. Growing costs for groceries, one of the few expenses people deal with daily, have particularly irritated cautious shoppers.
For the food and grocery industries, the merger and acquisition environment has become more complex due to the unique pain of fast-rising grocery prices. For almost two years, supermarket chains Krogers (KR) and Albertsons (ACI) have been battling regulators to get their $24 billion merger approved.
