Procter & Gamble Co (P&G) plans to remove its batteries and make Duracell a stand-alone company.
The world’s largest consumer products maker, which acquired Duracell in 2005, has been trimming its product lineup to focus on its top performers.
After it finishes jettisoning more than half its brands around the globe over the next year or two, P&G said it is set to be left with about 70 to 80 brands.
If a split-off of Duracell occurs, P&G said its shareholders would have the option of exchanging some, none or all of their P&G shares for shares of the new Duracell company.
P&G chief financial officer Jon Moeller during a call with reporters said that Duracell is an “attractive” business that generates about US$2 billion a year in sales.
P&G on Friday said that it would prefer a spin-off of Duracell, but that it is considering a sale or other options for Duracell.
The decision to sell or discontinue 90 to 100 brands comes as P&G fights to boost sluggish sales.
In the latest quarter, the company said sales volume fell in its beauty, hair and personal care unit.
Under pressure to boost its performance, the company brought back A.G. Lafley as its chief executive officer last year.
Lafley said the firm’s expansive portfolio is the result of a natural evolution of multinational companies, which have a tendency to create or acquire brands over time.
However, P&G had already been trying to slim down in recent years,
P&G said it now expects sales next year to be flat to up to low-single digits — it previously forecast growth in the low single digits.
It stood by its guidance for core earnings per share to grow in the mid-single-digit range.
For the quarter ending Sept. 30, it earned US$1.99 billion, or US$0.69 per share.
Not including one-time items, it earned US$1.07 per share, which matched the consensus of analysts surveyed by FactSet.
Revenue slipped to US$20.79 billion — analysts polled by FactSet expected US$20.76 billion.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS