The 20 most valuable brands ever acquired

The companies behind many of your favorite brands have been on a buying spree.

Kraft Foods last year became the most valuable brand to have been bought since 2000.

It was acquired by 3G Capital- and Warren Buffett-owned Heinz, with the Kraft brand valued at $41.3 billion, according to brand specialist Markables .

All brands which are acquired have to be valued and reported separately, according to accounting rules.

To get a better sense of the massive amount of money spent on acquiring big-name brands, Markables compiled a list of the 20 most value brands to have been bought since 2000.

Behind Kraft was tobacco company Lorillard, which was valued at $27.2 billion. It was acquired by Reynolds America, also in 2015.

The previous record was set in 2008 by beer makers InBev and Anheuser-Busch, which makes Budweiser.

Here is the full list of the 20 most valuable brands: