Unilever To Acquire Sara Lee Brands

Unilever, apparently, likes Sara Lee…a lot. The company will acquire Sara Lee’s personal care brands, including Sanex, Radox and Duschdas, for $1.88 billion. The brands had sales of about $1.1 billion last year.

Unilever said there is “significant potential” to build the newly acquired brands in developing and emerging markets, which generate approximately 15% of personal care’s annual sales for Sara Lee. Sara Lee’s personal care brands generated annual sales of more than $1.1 billion million for the financial year ended June 30, 2009.

“The Sara Lee brands enjoy strong consumer recognition, offer significant growth potential and are an excellent fit with Unilever’s existing business,” said PaulPolman, chief executive officer, Unilever.

A Unilever spokeswoman said 85% of the personal care brands they are buying a “perfect strategic” fit with its existing brands.

“We may in the future sell some of the smaller acquired brands, but this is something that we will look at later,” she said.

Unilever said it’s too early to comment on synergies and whether any factories would be closed or jobs lost.

While the deal adds several well-known names to the Unilever stable, Happi columnist Colin Hession, managing director of specialist consultants, Colin Hession Consulting, suggested the acquisition is something of a mystery.

“Why would Unilever, having only recently got rid of its own long tail of small local brands, want to acquire a whole lot of someone else’s?” asked Mr. Hession. “Some of the diverse bundle of brands involved have been M&A’d several times, and have been owned by several other people.”

For example, Monsavon once belonged to P&G, whileDuschdas was owned by Beechams (now GSK).

“There could be some immediate sales to be had by folding some of these earstwhile orphans into the Unilever distribution network, but what then?” asked Mr. Hession. “They will have to be supported, which brings one back to Unilever’s previous rationale for cutting smaller local brands. It’s a bit of a mystery…..what goes around, comes around, I suppose.”

For its part, Sara Lee said it will use the proceeds from the sale to invest in growth in its core food and beverage business and to repurchase stock, adding that its board of directors has authorized an additional $1 billion share repurchase program.

Moreover, Sara Lee Sara Lee said it has also received significant interest in the remainder of its household business and is continuing to pursue a potential sale of those brands, which include Ambi Pur air fresheners, Kiwi shoe care products and White King bleach.