Packaged food giant General Mills Inc plans to buy Annie’s, the maker of rabbit-shaped macaroni and cheese, for US$820 million, adding more natural and organic packaged offerings as consumers’ tastes change.
General Mills, the company behind classic food brands such as Pillsbury dough, Progresso soups, Yoplait yogurts and Cheerios and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereals, has been trying to cut cost and has tweaked its recipes as sales stagnate.
Sales have suffered as Greek yogurt and breakfast sandwiches became morning popular options.
FIBER COOKIES?
General Mills was slow to realize the growing demand for Greek yogurt, which has more protein than regular yogurt, but it has been adding some other options that it hopes consumers will consider healthier. Those include new Fiber One cookies with 5 grams of fiber and 120 calories per serving.
Annie’s sales, on the other hand, grew 20 percent in its latest fiscal year. General Mills said on Monday that Annie’s “convenient meals” and snacks businesses were particularly attractive. Annie’s also makes other pastas, frozen pizzas and snacks like crackers and fruit snacks.
The Minneapolis-based conglomerate is paying US$46 per share for Annie’s Inc, which is based in Berkeley, California.
SHARE SURGE
Annie’s board endorsed the offer, which is expected to close later this year. The company went public in March 2012 at US$19 per share.
Annie’s stock jumped 37 percent in US aftermarket trading to US$45.97. Its shares have dropped 25 percent over the past 12 months. It has dealt with rising costs for organic wheat and noted “material weaknesses” in its financial reporting. Its auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, said in June that it would resign.
General Mills stock rose US$0.99, or 1.9 percent, to US$54.50 in after-hours trading. Its shares have gained 8.8 percent in the past 12 months.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six