Celsius Holdings Inc (CELH)

[NewJerichoMan]

Bai ... had revenue of $231M. So a 7.4 multiplier.

Okay, let's use your numbers. Dr Pepper overpaid because Anheuser Busch was on the other side of the table bidding. In 99% of cases, it's inappropriate to grab the highest comp and hang your hat on it.

Either way, the purchaser will be concerned with primarily 2 things: the growth rate and the gross margin. But they'll be buying based on what it can do in the future. Bai was expected to do $425M in net sales in 2017, which at a $1.7B price tag imputed a 4x FTM multiplier (before 2017's expected net revenues were revised downward in YE CC). This future multiplier is the highest since Coke overpaid for VitaminWater at 6x. Coke spun the acquisition as accretive in Year 1. Sounds very similar to $DPS's spiel, right before they walked that back in the YE CC.

https://www.bevnet.com/news/2016/dr-pepper-snapple-group-acquire-bai-1-7-billion

When VitaCoco sold 25% to Reignwood (Red Bull China) for $665M, it was only doing $250M worldwide. So that was a 10.6 multiplier.

No. Entreprise value was $665M / $250M = 2.66x TTM. VitaCoco is having trouble giving itself away these days for ~$1B.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140714005327/en/Vita-Coco%C2%AE-Coconut-Water-Sells-25-Stake

Plenty of recent examples for 6+ multiplier sales.

There aren't plenty of recent examples of 6+ multipliers. I don't think you're grasping how rich of a valuation that is.

Here are some appropriate high multiple recent acquisitions, with VitaminWater thrown in (below). I left out minor deals like Coco Libre and Marley, which had mults far below 2. When public co buys private co, it's usually less than a 3x mult (TTM). To get above that, it's gotta be a special product. Celsius is a very credible product but it's arguable whether it deserve pedastal status. For a public company to buy Celsius, they've got to sell it to their shareholders that the acquisition is going to be accretive.