News  »  2009 » March » Friday the 13th » News Item

Sara Lee Corp., which is focusing on its core food and beverage business, is examining a sale of its European household and personal-care business, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The company has hired Goldman Sachs to sound out possible bidders for the business, which could fetch more than $2 billion, the people told the paper.

The company has hired Goldman Sachs to sound out possible bidders for the business, which could fetch more than $2 billion, according to sources. But one observer isn't so sure.

"I don't think Goldmans will get lucky on this one, or the activist hedge fund apparently pushing for the sale—not for $2 billion anyway," said Colin Hession, managing director of well known personal care consultants, Colin Hession Consulting. "The reality is that Sara Lee's body care division is a very mixed bag of one or two-country brands, with Sanex the only one with any pretentions to having a proper international franchise. Sara Lee has sat on its marketing hands for too long, never grasping the nettle and rationalizing their many and diverse local portfolios into a coherent series of pan-European brands. If someone else is going to do this for Sara Lee, it is unlikely to be at much more than distress sale prices."

Possible bidders for part or all of the household business include Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser Group, S.C. Johnson & Son Inc and Colgate-Palmolive Co.

Selling the household business, which accounts for about 15 percent of the company's sales, would be aimed at capturing value Sara Lee feels investors are ignoring, according to the paper.

Activist hedge fund ValueAct Capital Management LP, which owns a 5 percent Sara Lee stake and has pushed other companies to divest noncore operations, gained a seat on Sara Lee's board in August, which could provide further impetus to a sale, the paper said.