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Why Campell’s Acquiring Rao’s Pasta Sauce for $2.7 Billion is a Win for Private Investors ??

Recently scrolling LinkedIn, I came across this post from Josh Brown, CEO at Ritholtz Wealth Management, on how Rao’s was acquired by Campbells for a staggering $2.7 billion.

Josh usually has great insights, but this post likely caught my eye because Rao’s Sauce is the superior choice of jarred pasta sauce, in my professional opinion.

Once I read the post, I wasn’t just thinking about red sauce.

I went down the rabbit hole of looking into Rao’s past and discovered that they started as a family-owned restaurant in 1896 in New York City by an Italian immigrant family. I had no idea it was an actual restaurant?? In 1992, a fourth-generation Rao family member began selling the family-famous pasta sauce in jars, which was the beginning of the brand many of us have come to know and love, Rao’s Specialty Foods.

I came across this article detailing how the brand of bottled gravy was the ticket out of the kitchen, acquired in 2017 by Advent International for an unknown amount.

While the branding of Rao’s still maintains that small family-owned business feeling, there has been a slew of private investors betting along the way, financially tied to this multi-billion dollar brand.

The acquisition by Campbell does not only speak volumes about the brand Rao’s has built but also serves as a big win for those private investors along the way.

“[Todd] Lachman [founder, president and CEO of Sovos Brands] added that the transaction “creates substantial value” for shareholders, with the purchase price nearly double the $12 that Sovos Brands priced its initial public offering in September 2021.” - NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/campbell-soup-buying-makers-raos-pasta-sauce-27-billion-rcna98769

View Josh’s full post here.

Full Disclosure: There are some hot takes and strong opinions on jarred pasta sauce in the comments section.

Unicorn Hunter ??

I recently came across this really fun infographic by PitchBook the Unicorn Tracker aka “venture-backed companies that raised a round at post-money valuation of $1 billion or more” for all unicorns since 2016.

Click here to view the tracker.

?? Did you know that as of August 1st, 2023, there are 890 North American Unicorns worth over 3 Trillion Dollars?

I had fun clicking around and seeing the top industries and regional breakdowns of these VC-backed companies, and think you’ll like looking around too.

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