Investor makes unusual offer to buy Clorox Co.

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Activist investor Carl Icahn made an unusual offer to buy Clorox Co. this week, presenting himself almost as a disinterested bidder and encouraging the company to try to find a better offer.

The billionaire hedge-fund manager sent a letter to Clorox CEO Don Knauss on Thursday offering to pay $76.50 per share in cash, according to a regulatory filing Friday. That’s a 12 percent premium to Thursday’s closing price.

Clorox shares leapt Friday on the news. However, Icahn seemed more interested in drumming up another buyer, such as Procter & Gamble Co. or Colgate-Palmolive Co., than actually buying Clorox himself.

In his letter to Knauss, Icahn said that his firm wore “two hats” both as a potential buyer of Clorox and as its biggest shareholder. He said shareholders would benefit the most if Clorox were sold to another consumer-products company that could take advantage of “significant inherent synergies.”

He suggested that Procter & Gamble, Colgate and Kimberly-Clark Corp., which are headquartered in the U.S., might be interested. So might Unilever PLC, Reckitt Benckiser and Henkel AG, he said. He expressed confidence that Clorox would find “numerous superior bids” if it shopped itself around.

If no other bidders stepped forward, Icahn wrote, then “our fellow stockholders” should have the opportunity to vote on the Icahn bid.