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.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is