Brands For Sale
Unilever Laundry Detergent
What would the laundry detergent market be without "All" and "Wisk"? These brands have been part of the Unilever family, until now that is. Unilver will hold on to some of its other sterling names including Lipton and Ben & Jerry's, but private equity firm Vestar Capital Partners will put up $1.45 billion to take the Unilever North American laundry detergent business and combine it with a company which also owns the "White Rain" brand.
Dr. Pepper
"Dr. Pepper" traces its roots as one of America's most famous soft drinks back to 1885. The brand still has its own museum in downtown Waco, Texas, a city perhaps better known now for cults instead of beverages. Cadbury Schweppes spun-off the operation, which includes 7Up and Snapple, to shareholders and it now trades as Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. Cadberry was astute. The stock in the new company is off 15% over the last three months.
Motorola Handset Business
Almost no one knows that Motorola is in the home set-top and bar-code scanning businesses. Motorola has been crushed in the handset division, unable to duplicate the success of its Razr model which helped the company to a 22% global market share three years ago. It has lost half of that share and in the second quarter of this year Motorola's cell-phone operation suffered a 22% revenue drop to $3.3 billion and lost $346 million. Motorola plans to spin-off the handset division.
Wrigley's Gum Business
Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co is about to become history. Founded in 1891, the company is still run by a member of the founding family, William Wrigley, Jr. But, greed got the best of the Wrigley board and the most famous name in gum is being sold to Mars, the most famous name in chocolate bars. Warren Buffett, himself one of America's most famous icons, will help fund the deal.
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