Cadbury Schweppes says it has agreed to buy US sweets group Adams for $4.2 billion in cash.
The group said the purchase from Pfizer will be debt financed with no recourse to a rights issue, and that cost and revenue synergies from the Adams acquisition would reach $185 million in 2006.
The deal will make Cadbury Schweppes the global joint leader in confectionery and number two in chewing gum.
Cadbury - with brands such as Dairy Milk chocolate, Trebor mints and Hollywood and Dandy gum - will gain Adams's Trident and Dentyne chewing gums, Bubblicious bubble gum, Halls cough drops, Certs mints and Clorets breath fresheners.
The deal will give Cadbury market leadership in the "functional confectionery" sector, such as chewing gums, where growth is running double the overall confectionery market rate, and greater scale in new markets such as Latin America.
Pfizer, the world's biggest drugs group, put Adams up for sale in June after a two-year bar on selling it expired following Pfizer's acquisition of Warner Lambert.
The auction drew interest from some of the world's top food groups with Cadbury outbidding its main rival, the Swiss-based Nestle. US group Kraft Foods is also said to have looked closely at Adams.