Last year, just two months into his new job as CEO of Keurig Dr Pepper, Tim Cofer was eyeing what he viewed as a transformative deal. The company had long thirsted for a way into the lucrative and fast-growing energy drink segment, that over recent years has become the beverage world’s hottest category. Though KDP—No. 284 on the Fortune 500—had decent sales with its existing brand, C4, focused on the workout segment, as well as Black Rifle, a veteran-founded and “unapologetically American” brand, the new CEO knew KDP needed something new in the mix.
But he didn’t want just any energy drink. He wanted Ghost.
Ghost started as a hip purveyor of nutritional supplements for fitness enthusiasts and bodybuilders. But the founding team noticed that shoppers for its protein powders and pre-workout supplements were stopping to purchase energy beverages in nearby coolers. So in 2020, they launched Ghost as a sports nutrition drink, branding the new entry to attract not just hardcore athletes but concert- and festivalgoers, a demographic especially attracted to Ghost’s home city of Las Vegas. Its marketing positioned Ghost as the first “full disclosure” entry in the energy field. Ghost extolls that it’s free of artificial colors, and the nutrition panel on each can provides a full list of its ingredients that encompass moderate doses of caffeine plus L-carnitine, an energy-producing amino acid, and alpha-GPC, a compound that enhances recovery from strenuous exercise. Ghost hatched zany flavors, partnering alongside Warheads, Sour Patch Kids, and Swedish Fish, candy brands that generate big buzz on social media and boost its appeal to younger folks: Ghost Sour Patch Kids Blue Raspberry uncorked a sensation. Ghost has also landed big-name sports sponsorships, grabbing billboard space as the official energy drink of the Vegas Golden Knights.
Problem was, Ghost wasn’t exactly for sale. For Cofer, a 35-year consumer packaged goods veteran who’d clinched dozens of M&A transactions from the U.K. to Vietnam for Kraft Foods and Mondelez, he knew the success of any deal always hinges on what he calls “the human aspect,” or as he explains it, “the importance of winning hearts and minds.”
So on a warm day in June of 2024, Cofer was waiting at the plush, historic Deer Path Inn in Lake Forest, Ill., for a marathon, all-day, get-to-know-you alongside his invited guest, Ghost cofounder Dan Lourenco.
For Lourenco, the prospect of encountering a pillar of the beverage establishment in a setting this formal was somewhat off-putting. “It was surreal for someone who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in eastern Connecticut, and still running what we considered a startup, to be going to a semisecret meeting with the CEO of one of the big bev cos.,” he told Fortune. At first glance, Lourenco and Cofer looked like a mismatch: the freewheeling, goateed 38-year-old entrepreneur sporting high-tops and a blue-jean-style trucker jacket; the crew-cut, buttoned-up corporate-lifer, two-decades his elder, appearing boardroom regimental in a neat blue suit and glasses. For several hours at the hotel conference room, Cofer quizzed Lourenco on, as the latter puts it, “what worked and what didn’t work, and most of all, where we wanted to go.” Then they went on a “store check” tour of a Jewel-Osco supermarket (part of a large chain in Chicago), a CVS, and a Casey’s convenience store where Cofer showed how even KDP’s two relatively small energy brands were getting far more shelf space, signage, and cold offerings than much bigger Ghost. “What really got me excited was the promise of plugging the Ghost guitar into the KDP distribution amp,” recalls Lourenco.
But the two really connected when Cofer took his guest on a 45-minute walk at dusk through the quiet streets of Lake Forest, reprising the person-to-person stroll that is Cofer’s favorite way of winning trust. “Tim shot at me point blank, ‘What do you want to do with your life? What are your dreams?’” Lourenco responded, “I want to make Ghost a 100-year brand,” adding that he’d like to do “a Mick Jagger” and still be setting the tempo at age 90. Says Lourenco, “Where these partnerships go awry is when the buyer comes in and tries to change you too much, mold you too much. Tim had the confidence to say, ‘I’m trusting Ghost the way you’re running it,’ meaning I could keep playing for the love of the game.” Put simply, the pair hit it off: The CEO came away convinced that the entrepreneur had the bandwidth to work well in a big organizational framework, and Lourenco saw Cofer as a like-minded soul who recognized that Ghost harbored what he wanted and wouldn’t dilute—the elixir for putting fun in a 16-ounce can.
In October, Cofer and Lourenco agreed on a valuation of $1.65 billion for KDP to acquire a majority stake in Ghost (KDP will purchase the balance in 2028), marking the largest acquisition ever for the beverage colossus. Starting in early March, KDP trucks and agents were hauling cases of Ghost in much bigger quantities to Walmarts and Krogers, and its brightly colored cans are lining the beverage coolers as never before. As for Cofer, he may not be your typical bodybuilder or festivalgoer, but he’ll tell anyone who will listen that the perfect pairing with a corporate turnaround is an ice-cold Ghost.
