Nestle, the world’s largest food maker, is reportedly interested in buying Russian baby food and juice maker Progress.
According to reports from Reuters and Russian business daily Kommersant, the Swiss food giant is in talks with Progress. Kommersant said today (9 September) that an announcement could be made in the next two weeks, according to the paper’s sources.
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By GlobalDataHowever, when contacted by just-food today, Nestle Russia said it did not comment on what it labelled “market rumours”.
Nevertheless, Victoria Petrova, an analyst at Credit Suisse in Moscow, said the acquisition would make sense for Nestle.
“It is a very good brand, a strong addition to [a] porfolio and the synergies are pretty obvious. [Progress] is a very strong, probably top five, baby food producer. It used to be a part of Lebedyansky, which PepsiCo acquired in 2007,” she told just-food.
Nestle manufactures products including coffee, chocolate and ice cream in Russia. In 2010, its local sales amounted to RUB62.4bn (US$2bn), Kommersant repored.
The company is in a period of aggressive growth in developing markets. Last month, Nestle confirmed that it would invest US$116.6m in Thailand in the next two years to increase production. In July, it struck a deal to acquire a majority stake in Chinese confectioner Hsu Fu Chi for US$1.7bn.
