United Biscuits could be sold to Chinese firm
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United Biscuits, which owns the McVities and Jaffa Cakes brands, could be sold to Chinese manufacturing group Bright Foods, according to reports.
The Sunday Times reported that Bright Foods is in “secret talks” to buy United Biscuits for between £2bn and £2.5bn.
The deal, if it goes ahead, would be the biggest international purchase by a Chinese company in the food and drink sector.
The firm was put up for sale by private equity owners Blackstone and PAI earlier this year.
Firms including American Campbell Soup, Nestle, PepsiCo, Kellogg’s and Kraft have all been tipped as possible bidders.
United Biscuits is the UK’s largest biscuit producer and generated sales of £1.3bn and profit of £223m last year.
Earlier this year United Biscuits launched its McVities VIP Club, a collect and reward scheme for consumers.
YouGov Insight:
Chocolate
- YouGov SixthSense research shows that a third of adults are eating less chocolate than a year ago, with dieting and healthy eating concerns most likely to have promoted this.
- Galaxy had a performed strongly in 2009, with an increase in sales of around 19%.
- In January 2010, Mars became the first confectionery company to reduce saturated fat levels across its core chocolate bar range.
- From this summer, Mars, Snickers, Milky Way and Topic will all contain at least 15% less saturated fat.
- When buying chocolate for their own consumption 11% of UK consumers look for products that contain Fair Trade chocolate.
- 1 in 5 consumers base their chocolate purchases based on whether or not they approve of that brand.
- 37% of consumers say that they only eat high quality chocolate.
Click here for more information on this YouGov market report
