kurt - 2007-7-16 21:19:00
Unilever Gains On Surprising Colgate Talk
Ruthie Ackerman, 07.11.07, 7:35 PM
With the stock market trading higher on takeover activity on Wednesday, one rumor stuck out like a sore thumb.
Oppenheimer analyst Linda Bolton Weiser said that the personal-care products maker, Colgate-Palmolive (nyse: CL - news - people ), was rumored to be looking to buy Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer products maker, or possibly just its personal-care-products division. That unit includes brands like Sunsilk, Pond’s, Dove, Axe, Rexona, Degree, and Vaseline. Colgate’s brands include Colgate, Palmolive, Mennen, and Softsoap.
On many levels, this seemed strange, not least because Unilever’s market value is $95 billion, while Colgate’s is just $34 billion. Unilever’s annual sales, similarly, are $50 billion, almost four times Colgate’s $13 billion.
The rumor also seems odd because the talk has previously been going the other way: that Unilever was looking to acquire Colgate-Palmolive.
Colgate shares squeezed higher at the close on Wednesday a sign that investors believed that if the company were to acquire all of Unilever it would keep part and spin the rest off. Shares of Colgate gained 1.7%, or $1.12, to close at $66.89, on Wednesday. Shares of Unilever jumped 2.6%, or 87 cents, to $33.98.
Weiser said that she believed that Colgate would have to pay at least $35 billion for Unilever’s personal-care business. Besides that unit, Unilever is active in food, with brands like Lipton tea, Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Hellman's mayonaise, and household products such as Cif cleansers and Surf laundry products. It sold a majority of its frozen-foods business to the Permira Funds private-equity concern last year.
Unilever and Colgate both have fairly new chief executive officers and Weiser believes that Colgate’s Ian Cook, who took over from Reuben Mark on July 1, may be more aggressive about paying a steep price for the “right strategic acquisition.” But, she says, Mark is still chairman for the next 18 months and has a big influence on Cook. Recently, Mark passed up the opportunity to acquire Gillette (nyse: G - news - people ) and the over-the-counter healthcare business of Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ) .
Andrew Wilkinson, senior analyst at Interactive Brokers Group, said that the rumor doesn’t make a lot of sense. “It’s a bit of a David-and-Goliath situation," he said, although he allowed that it was possible that together with private equity Colgate could acquire the much-larger Unilever.
kurt - 2007-7-16 21:24:00
看完后直接昏倒....
blueblood - 2007-7-17 13:09:00
如果从纯操作角度，小公司收购大公司也是可能的。
从两家生意的发展来看，倒是利华可能会收购高露洁吧，正好弥补在牙膏方面的弱势。
但最有可能的是merge，而不是acquire吧
老树乌鸦 - 2007-7-17 19:22:00
从新闻报道角度，说 C 收购UL 比较有新闻效应，容易吸引眼球。
同blueblood, merge应该还是可以理解的，或者仅仅是personal-care-products division，以加强对PG的对抗。就象诺基亚和西门子那样。
lbcnk - 2007-7-21 21:43:00
呵呵,当新闻看看好了~~