General Mills wins Yoplait bidding

18/03/11 17:44 CET

corporate

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US food company General Mills is set to pay 800 million euros for half of the Yoplait yoghurt brand – the second-biggest after Danone.

The sellers – private equity fund PAI Partners and French dairy co-operative Sodiaal – chose General Mills from bidders including Mexico’s Groupo Lala, Nestle and Europe’s largest dairy group Lactalis.

The deal should help grow Yoplait’s sales in emerging markets.

The news that General Mills has won the bidding for Yoplait ends months of tense and highly political negotiations.

The deal would give Yoplait, the world’s second-largest yogurt maker after Danone, a total value of 1.6 billion euros, some four times the value of the business when PAI invested in 2002.

French dairy cooperative Sodiaal will retain the remaining 50 percent of the business.

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