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Tag: CVC Capital

  • Unilever to sell its global tea biz to CVC Capital for $5.1 billion

    Unilever to sell its global tea biz to CVC Capital for $5.1 billion

    Mumbai: Unilever PLC has agreed to sell its global tea business to CVC Capital Partners for $5.1 billion, concluding a process of reviewing and spinning off the division that took more than two years. The business being sold, called Ekaterra, hosts a portfolio of 34 tea brands including Lipton, PG Tips, Pukka Herbs, and Tazo, and generated revenues of two billion euros in 2020.

    The sale, however, excludes Unilever’s tea units in India and Indonesia and its partnerships in the ready-to-drink tea market, such as its bottled tea joint venture with PepsiCo.

    CVC reached an agreement with the British multinational consumer goods giant after beating out rival private equity bidders including Advent International. Ekaterra will be sold to CVC’s Capital Fund VIII on a cash-free and debt-free basis in a process that is expected to conclude in the second half of 2022, Unilever said in a statement on Thursday.

    The company said in January 2020 that it was starting a strategic review of its tea business that could result in a partial or full sale. The transaction marks a much-needed win for Unilever’s chief executive officer Alan Jope, who’s been seeking to rejig the company’s portfolio to keep up with changing consumer tastes.

    “The evolution of our portfolio into higher growth spaces is an important part of our growth strategy. Our decision to sell ekaterra demonstrates further progress in delivering against our plans,” Jope said.

    The sale relieves Unilever of a business that has been a drag on earnings for several years as demand for black tea waned and consumer tastes changed in recent years amid a shift to green tea and other flavourful herbal alternatives.

    The global consumer goods major has been under some pressure as its stock languishes and it struggles to compete in the face of high inflationary costs, especially in emerging markets, its biggest source of revenue.

  • IMG Worldwide acquired by WME-Silver Lake for $2.3 bn

    IMG Worldwide acquired by WME-Silver Lake for $2.3 bn

    MUMBAI: The curtains have finally fallen on an acquisition which was in the news for quite some time now. Private investment firm Forstmann Little & Co has agreed to sell global sports, fashion and media business IMG Worldwide to US-based William Morris Endeavour  Entertainment (WME) and its stakeholder Silver Lake Partners at a price tag of around $2.3 billion.

     

    The final bidders CVC Capital and Chernin Entertainment and a consortium of ICM Partners and the Carlyle Group, bid less than $1.8 billion, thus losing out to WME.

     

    WME is a leading US-based entertainment and media company with an unparalleled client list of artists and content creators across film, television, music, literature, theatre and digital media and is led by co-CEOs Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell.

     

    It was formed by the 2009 merger of the William Morris Agency and Endeavor. The company has over 1,000 employees and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, with offices in New York, Nashville, London and Miami. Through its partner companies, including award-winning global creative agency Droga5, WME also provides clients with unique advertising, brand integration and marketing opportunities across traditional, social media, mobile and gaming platforms. Amongst the big names it represents figure: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Adam Sandler, Christopher Nolan, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey and Seth MacFarlane.

     

    IMG on the other hand has 3,500 employees and tremendous strengths in the sports business – representation, marketing, production and distribution – apart from representing 500 athletes, models and entertainers as clients. Among the names figure: Gisele Bundchen, Novak Djokovic, Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake.

     

    IMG owns IMG College, the leader in collegiate marketing, licensing and media rights  (it handles marketing and ticketing for 200 collegiate sports properties). It is slated to generate revenue of about $375 million and operating income of $75 million.

     

    The group has joint ventures like IMG Reliance, IMX, IMG CCTV and IMG Dolu in the emerging markets of India, Brazil, China and Turkey. Additionally, IMG Media is the world’s largest independent producer and distributor of sports programming. Its IMG Reliance joint venture promotes the All-India Football Federation.

     

    IMG Events and Federations owns and manages some of the most sought after events and includes long standing associations with the world’s most important sports organisations, leagues, and federations. IMG Fashion owns and operates fashion events around the world and IMG Models represents the world’s top models and leading designers. IMG Art+Commerce represents the most influential photographers, art directors and stylists.

     

    Silver Lake, on the other hand, is a global leader in private investments in technology and technology-enabled industries. The firm has offices in New York, Menlo Park, San Mateo, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo and has approximately $20 billion in combined assets under management. The Silver Lake Partners portfolio includes or has included technology and technology-enabled industry leaders such as Alibaba, Allyes, Ameritrade, Avago, Business Objects, Dell, Flextronics, Gartner, Gerson Lehrman Group, Global Blue, Go Daddy, Instinet, Intelsat, Interactive Data Corporation, MCI, Mercury Payment Systems, MultiPlan, the NASDAQ OMX Group, NetScout, NXP, Sabre, Seagate Technology, Skype, Spreadtrum, SunGard Data Systems, UGS, Vantage Data Centers, Virtu and William Morris Endeavor.

     

    IMG was created by McCormack and golfer Arnold Palmer in 1960. Forstmann Little purchased it a year after McCormack died in 2003, and then Forstmann Little founder Theodore Forstmann died in 2011.

     

    With the acquisition of IMG Worlwide, WME has now leaped ahead of its once larger rival the Creative Artistes Agency.