Nestle to sell sports nutrition PowerBar and Musashi brands to Post Holdings

Swiss food giant Nestle SA today said it had sold its sports nutrition products PowerBar and Musashi brands to US-based consumer packed goods holding company Post Holdings, as part of the Swiss food giant's plan to dispose off non-performing brands.

Post Holdings, based in St Louis, Missouri, is a leading manufacturer, marketer and distributor of branded ready-to-eat cereals in the United States and Canada, while Nestlé's premium sports nutrition business operates mostly in the US, Canada, western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Although Nestle did not reveal the financial terms of the sale, analysts speculate that the brands would have fetched around $400 million based on the combined annual sales of PowerBar and Musashi  at around $220 million.

PowerBar brand, which has a range of energy bars, sports drinks, gels and protein supplements, was founded by Canadian athlete and businessman Brian Maxwell along with his wife Jennifer Biddulph, a nutritionist.

They sold the brand, which had annual sales of $150 million in 2000, to Nestlé for $375 million.

Musashi is a leading sports nutrition brand in Australia.

The Vevey, Switzerland-based company had said in August last year that it would take a good look at its non-performing brands after having posted its weakest quarterly results in four years.

In November 2013, Nestle sold its Jenny Craig weight management businesses in North America and Oceania to private equity firm North Castle Partners for an undisclosed sum.

Other companies have recently reassessed their portfolio of non-performing assets and have been divesting some brands in developed regions.

British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline last year sold its Lucozade and Ribena nutrition drinks to Japan's Suntory Beverage & Food for $2.11 billion, while  Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever sold its Wish-Bone salad dressings business to US-based Pinnacle Foods for $580 million, and Campbell Soup sold some of its European soups, sauces and simple meals brands to private equity firm CVC Capital Partner for an undisclosed sum.

St Louis, Missouri-based Post Holdings is a leading manufacturer, marketer and distributor of branded ready-to-eat cereals in the US and Canada.

Post, which makes cereals such as Grape-Nuts, Great Grains and Honeycomb, is the third-largest producer of ready-to-eat cereals in the US.

Post said that it will combine the PowerBar and Musashi brands with its nutrition portfolio to create a nutrition group with expected annual revenue of nearly $550 million.

The PowerBar and Musashi brands will join with Post-owned Premier Nutrition's Premier Protein and Joint Juice brands and Dymatize Enterprises LLC's Dymatize and Supreme brands.