Bryan Matthews

Pepsi buys Rockstar .     P epsiCo buys Rockstar Energy Beverages for $3.85 billion.     Founded in 2001, Rockstar is drinks designed for people leading an active lifestyle. Available in 20 flavors at convenience and grocery stores in 30 countries. Distributed by PepsiCo in North America since 2009. Supporting the Rockstar lifestyle across the globe through action sports, motorsports, and live music. Pepsi's energy portfolio also includes Kickstart , GameFuel, and Amp Energy.     The deal reflects the shift from reliance on sales of sugary, fizzy drinks toward options ranging from tea and coffee to still and sparkling water varieties, which appeal to health-conscious and younger consumers. Neither PepsiCo nor Coca-Cola owns a major brand in the energy drinks category, which is forecast to grow to more than $80 billion over the next five years and is now dominated by Red Bull.     2 00 countries and territories around the world enjoy PepsiCo products a billion times a

Compass buys Marucci.     Compass Diversified Holdings buys Marucci Sports for $200 million.     Marucci Sports was founded in 2009 by Kurt Ainsworth, a retired pitcher for the San Francisco Giants and Baltimore Orioles, Joe Lawrence, a former second baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays, and Reed Dickens, a former White House Assistant Press Secretary under George W. Bush.     Marucci ’s first buy was Marucci Bat Company, launched out of a backyard shed in 2004. Ainsworth then led the buyout of an Amish-run Pennsylvania wood mill in 2008. This solidified Marucci's superior wood supply, and it still supplies all Marucci's wood today. In 2017 Marucci bought Victus , a baseball equipment maker known for its edgy designs and big attitude.     With vertically cohesive wood bat production, a global supplier group, and a client base of MVPs and World Series winners, Marucci and Victus are the top two bats among Big League players. Their product range now includes wood

Covea buys PartnerRe.     Covea buys PartnerRe from Exor for $9 billion.     Exor is the Agnelli family holding company which also controls Fiat Chrysler, CNH Industrial, and Ferrari.     PartnerRe is a pure-play reinsurer offering risk solutions for agriculture, aviation & space, cyber risk, directors & officers, downstream energy, engineering & construction, financial risks, financial institutions, health, life, marine & upstream energy, nuclear, property & casualty, property catastrophe, specialty property, sports, leisure & entertainment, structured & customized solutions, and terrorism. Scale is ever more important for reinsurers as their clients merge and then seek counterparties with greater capital strength when reinsuring their risks. Following this deal with Covéa, PartnerRe enters the top tier of reinsurers worldwide.     For Covéa, owned by its customers and operating in France, this diversifies its business beyond home, auto, life, and h

Gilead buys Forty Seven.     Gilead Sciences buys Forty Seven for $4.9 billion.     Forty Seven is a clinical-stage immuno-oncology firm developing therapies targeting cancer immune evasion pathways and specific cell targeting approaches based on tech licensed from Stanford. Forty Seven’s lead program, magrolimab , is a monoclonal antibody against the CD47 receptor, a ‘don’t eat me’ signal that cancer cells commandeer to avoid being ingested by macrophages. Evaluated ant ibodies are in many clinical studies of patients with myelodysplastic syndrome, acute myeloid leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and solid tumors. These assets complement the cell therapy franchise Gilead added with its 2017 buy of Kite Pharma .     Beyond magrolimab , Forty Seven is fixing to advance two more compounds into clinical testing. Developing FSI-174, an anti-cKIT antibody, in combination with magrolimab creates a novel, all-antibody conditioning regimen to address the limitations of current st