By Amy-Jo Crowley, Anousha Sakoui, Andres Gonzalez and Alexander Marrow
LONDON (Reuters) -Unilever is considering selling a group of British food brands, including Marmite, Colman’s and Bovril, three people with knowledge of the matter said, as the consumer goods group looks
to streamline its business.
DEAL DETAILS
• The London-listed company is considering shedding the century-old, yeast-based spread Marmite brand, the people said.
Marmite has a strong salty taste which divides opinion as Unilever’s marketing has highlighted with a “You either love it or hate it” tagline.
• English mustard maker Colman’s and concentrated beef extract Bovril are also included in the potential sale, the sources said.
• Unilever is looking to keep its Pot Noodle brand, two of the people said.
• The package of UK assets is estimated to have about 200 million pounds ($261.30 million) worth of revenues, one of the people said.
• Unilever declined to comment.
KEY CONTEXT
• Home to about 400 brands worldwide, Unilever is recalibrating operations to focus on its top 30 “power” brands, particularly in Europe.
• Former CEO Hein Schumacher said last year the company was looking to sell several food brands with combined sales of around 1 billion euros ($1.05 billion).
• Unilever installed a new CEO, former finance chief Fernando Fernandez, earlier this year.
• Unilever is in the process of spinning off its ice cream unit, home to brands such as Magnum and Ben & Jerry’s.
($1 = 0.7654 pounds)
(Reporting by Amy-Jo Crowley, Anousha Sakoui, Andres Gonzalez and Alexander Marrow.
Editing by Lisa Jucca, Elisa Martinuzzi and Jane Merriman)
