Recently finished reread of Barbarians at the Gate and was curious what ultimately ended up happening to the business

> In 1990, KKR sold off Del Monte Foods to a group of investors led by Merrill Lynch Capital Partners for ~$1.5BN
> In 1991-92, KKR sold off various liquor brands under the combined company. This included Heublein and Smirnoff. Rationale was that the alcohol business lacked any real synergies with tobacco and packaged foods
> Around this same time, they also sold the European Tobacco Operations to Japan Tobacco International (JTI) for roughly $2BN. Key factor was likely due to litigation and regulatory risks in the international market
> In 1994, KKR split RJR Nabisco into two entities - RJR Tobacco (Camel, Winston) and Nabisco Holdings (Oreo, Ritz, Chips Ahoy!)
> In 1999, RJR Tobacco merged with British American Tobacco with BAT taking a control stake and merging its American operations with RJR. BAT eventually acquired the entire business of Reynolds for $49BN in 2017
> In 2000, Nabisco was sold to Philip Morris (now Altria) for $19BN. This was PM's attempt to diversify away from tobacco into food operations. Also important to remember that Philip Morris owned Kraft Foods at the time, which gave them significant synergies
> In 2007, Altria spun out Kraft Foods as a separate publicly traded company. Idea was to separate out the tobacco and food businesses into separate entities
> In 2008, Altria spun out Philip Morris International as its own company, separating the US business (retained by Altria) and the international business (now PMI)
> By 2010, Kraft Foods had become a massive food giant following the acquisition of Cadbury for $19BN
> In 2012, Kraft Foods decided to separate its grocery and snacks business. The snacks business became Mondelez International (MDLZ) with brands such as Oreo, Ritz, Cadbury, Trident, and Sour Patch under its operations. Irene Rosenfeld, then CEO of Kraft Foods, took over as the CEO of Mondelez - the newly formed entity
> In 2015, the remaining Kraft Foods business merged with HJ Heinz (owned by 3G capital and Berkshire) to form Kraft Heinz

The history of the food and tobacco industries for the last 40 years is essentially just a story of consolidation, divestiture, M&A and spin-offs. Investment bankers must have made an absolute killing here.