Hints and tips:
...Unilever has always tended to use cash on deals — from the $20bn acquisition of Bestfoods, which brought Hellmann’s mayonnaise to the stable in 2000, to last year’s €2.27bn purchase of Carver Korea, a skincare...
...“It seems to us that Unilever still bears the scars of the $20bn Bestfoods acquisition back in 2000, where it overpaid for big food brands such as Hellmann’s and Knorr,” he says....
...This was an era when Unilever paid an enterprise value of 2.7 times for Bestfoods of the US (in 2000) and when portfolios were sprawling....
...Mr Colzani, who in 20 years at the consumer goods multinational headed Unilever Bestfoods in Brazil, says Barilla revenues are unlikely to grow this year but predicts that group revenues will rise “to around...
...Sales of jars of Chicken Tonight, which comes under the Knorr brand acquired by Unilever through its merger with Bestfoods in 2000, have slumped in recent years and the brand’s image has grown stale....
...Four years after Unilever bought Bestfoods, the US maker of Knorr soup and Skippy peanut butter was growing more slowly than when it was independent. To be fair, Kraft has shown better form....
...Consider what happened when Unilever launched a $20bn unsolicited offer for Bestfoods back in 2000....
...offer to buy Bestfoods....
...Again, Unilever knew what it was doing with its $24.2bn purchase of Bestfoods in 2000....
...People forget that Unilever had an inadequate US foods business before the Bestfoods deal, Mr FitzGerald says....
...Quintessentially US brands such as Skippy peanut butter fell into Anglo-Dutch ownership when Unilever snapped up Bestfoods....
...Bestfoods, Royal Marines and Virgin Money....
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