Darius Bikoff must have had a good holiday weekend. On Friday Coca-Cola announced plans to buy his “enhanced water” soft-drinks company Glaceau for $4.1bn – the largest acquisition in Coke’s 115-year history.

And Bikoff still has a job. Under the deal, he and two colleagues who turned the Vitamin Water drink into a US phenomenon will run Glaceau as a separate business. Bikoff reportedly had the idea of selling “enhanced water” while drinking plain water and sucking a vitamin C tablet. He talked up his product to independent markets and launched a savvy word-of-mouth marketing campaign.