Yoplait Stake Is Said to Draw Interest From Grupo Lala, Mengniu
Yoplait Stake Said to Draw Interest From Grupo Lala, Mengniu
Robert Caplin/Bloomberg
Yoplait has grown to become the world’s second-largest yogurt brand by distributing products through General Mills in the U.S. and other partners around the world.
Yoplait has grown to become the world’s second-largest yogurt brand by distributing products through General Mills in the U.S. and other partners around the world. Photographer: Robert Caplin/Bloomberg
PAI Partners’s planned sale of its stake in yogurt maker Yoplait is drawing interest from Mexico’s Grupo Lala and China Mengniu Dairy Co., said people with knowledge of the matter.
KKR & Co. is considering whether to bid with China Mengniu, said the people, who declined to be identified because the sale process is private. BC Partners Ltd., Lion Capital LLP and AXA SA’s private-equity arm are among the other buyout firms also weighing an offer. General Mills Inc. may also bid, they said.
Yoplait has grown to become the world’s second-largest yogurt brand by distributing products through General Mills in the U.S. and other partners around the world. PAI is considering selling its 50 percent stake in a deal that may value Yoplait at about 1.2 billion euros ($1.69 billion), people involved in the talks said in July.
PAI, which manages a 2.7 billion-euro buyout fund in Paris, and dairy cooperative Sodiaal hired banks including Morgan Stanley and Societe Generale to manage the sale, said four people with knowledge of the matter last month. Sodiaal, which founded Yoplait and owns the other half of it, doesn’t intend to sell its shares. PAI has owned its stake in the Boulogne- Billancourt, France-based company since 2002.
The sale process is in the early stages and it isn’t clear whether any potential acquirers have signed confidentiality agreements or formally expressed an interest.
Buyout Funds
Groupe Lactalis might be interested in Yoplait, said Luc Morelon, a company spokesman, yesterday. Last month, Challenges magazine reported KKR’s interest, and the Sunday Times reported that General Mills is considering an offer and Nestle SA may submit a bid.
Leveraged buyout fund managers such as BC Partners and Lion, both based in London, have led $127 billion of purchases in 2010, more than double the amount in the year-earlier period, as they seek to return profit to investors and persuade them to commit money to new funds.
Mengniu spokeswoman Zhao Yuanhua and a spokesman for Grupo Lala declined to immediately comment. Officials at AXA, General Mills, Lion, BC Partners, KKR, and Nestle declined to comment.
Jacques Caillaud, a spokesman for Sodiaal, declined to comment. A spokesman for PAI didn’t return calls.
To contact the reporter on this story: Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in Paris at achassany@bloomberg.net; Jeffrey McCracken in New York at jmccracken3@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net; Jennifer Sondag at jsondag@bloomberg.net.
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