Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
Joe Heron was happy when reached in late January, just after PepsiAmericas Inc. bought Ardea Beverage Co., the $3-million company in Hopkins he founded just two years ago.
“I’ll probably celebrate for the next two years,” Heron says. “My house is not on the hook any more.”
Ardea sells a line of beverages in colorful cans and packed with ingredients that promote states of being such as “focus” and “calm.” The cans are labeled with those words as well.
PepsiAmericas is the second largest bottling company/distributor of Pepsi products in the country, based in Minneapolis. Bob Pohlad is CEO. It posted more than $3.2 billion in sales in 2005.
Heron says he’s glad to be “keeping the innovation” here in Minnesota. He remains president and CEO of Ardea Beverage, which he says will be run as an independent entity under PepsiAmericas. “We really, really like them,” Heron says about his acquirer.
One thing is immediately different; he can’t disclose terms of the sale, he says. “We’re part of a publicly traded company.” But he doesn’t mind being part of a corporation again. Heron left Novartis to start Ardea Beverage. “I’m pretty happy to get a paycheck,” he says.The purchase gives Ardea “distribution muscles, and financial muscles,” Heron says. He’ll immediately start adding sales managers to support the distribution that PepsiAmericas provides.
Heron says he’s been getting inquiries, mostly from venture capitalists, for the past six months. It used to take years for a new beverage to get shelf space, then build up distribution, then finally be picked up by a larger firm. Now grocers are pushing for new products faster.
For him it couldn’t come fast enough. “Everything’s slow to me,” he says. “Bigger, faster, better. That’s what I want.”
Was the aftermath of the sale just a little bit crazy? “I drink ‘focus,’ so I’m fine,” he says.
Joe Heron, Ardea Beverage Co.: 952.934.0096; jo******@*************es.com; www.nutrisoda.com
