Pepsi paid $2bn for Poppi and now says it won't pay the $300m earnout. Everyone's acting surprised. What happens when a giant buys a challenger brand, with the receipts: - Honest Tea, Odwalla, Zico: all bought by Coke, all discontinued. Zico's founder bought it back. - Bai: Dr Pepper paid $1.7bn, wrote most of it down. - Bodyarmor: Coke paid $5.6bn, took a $760m impairment three years later. - Rockstar: Pepsi paid $3.85bn, has lost share every year since. - Freshly: Nestlé paid $1.5bn, shut it within three years. - Dollar Shave Club: Unilever paid $1bn, sold it for a fraction seven years later. - Bonobos: Walmart paid $310m, sold for $75m. - Mirror: Lululemon paid $500m, wrote it off and shut it. - Ballast Point: Constellation paid $1bn, sold for pocket change four years on. - Reebok: Adidas paid $3.8bn, sold for $2.5bn fifteen years later. - Snapple: Quaker paid $1.7bn in 1994, sold for $300m in 1997. The original. The pattern isn't bad luck. The brand was bought to protect the original and core portfolio, not to grow. Once it's off the market, the job is done. If you ever sell to one of these: the cash on day one is the price. Everything else is a promise from someone who is incentivized is not to keep it.