P&G looks into selling slow-growth brands

The company prefers to focus on beauty and health-care products.

CINCINNATI (AP) — Procter & Gamble Co. is exploring possible sales of slow-growth brands, which could include Folgers coffee, Pringles chips and Duracell batteries.

The Financial Times reported Monday that P&G has retained Blackstone Group LP to auction off Duracell and also Folgers and Pringles chips. The newspaper cited unnamed sources familiar with the situation.

P&G spokesman Terry Loftus said Tuesday the company doesn’t comment on speculation about possible divestitures.

However, P&G said in August, when it reported fourth-quarter earnings, that it was reviewing its portfolio and taking a look at businesses that were at the lower end of the consumer products company’s sales growth goals of 4 percent to 6 percent.

In a subsequent letter to shareholders, A.G. Lafley, chairman and chief executive, said businesses that don’t deliver solid sales, operating profit growth and shareholder return become “a candidate for divestiture. ... We have more work to do to strengthen our mix of businesses, and we will do it.”

Focusing on core brands

P&G, which had $76.5 billion in total sales for its 2007 fiscal year, has said it is focusing on its core brands, high-margin businesses such as beauty and health care, and emerging overseas markets such as China and India. Its brands include Tide detergent, Pampers diapers and Olay skin care.

Fourth-quarter sales for its snacks, coffee and pet-care segment, which includes Folgers and Pringles, increased 2 percent over the previous year. Duracell, reporting results with Braun, the small electrical appliances maker obtained with Duracell in P&G’s 2005 acquisition of Gillette Co., combined for 4 percent sales growth for the quarter. Duracell is in tough competition with Energizer Holdings Inc. and other battery makers.

Analyst Bill Schmitz Jr. of Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. said in an August client note that he believes “Duracell is on the shape up or ship out list.”

“Some of the more mature products, where you don’t really have the opportunity to grow them in some of the markets they’re focusing on, don’t offer the kind of growth they want,” said Peter Sorrentino, senior portfolio manager for Huntington Asset Management. “They can realize some asset sales and redeploy that capital into those markets that are growing very rapidly.”

In recent years, P&G has sold several brands, including Jif peanut butter to J.M. Smucker Co. and Sunny Delight juice drinks to a private equity firm that formed a standalone company.