Recent multinational moves
Danone/United Biscuits
Danone, the French diary products and biscuit company, has announced it will sell its British and Irish biscuit divisions to British firm United Biscuits. The $386 million deal would transfer Danone's Jacob's Biscuits line (UK) and Irish Biscuits line (Ireland) to UB.
Danone is currently the #3 player in the British market, with UB at #1. The acquisition, if approved, will give UB at 27% share of the market, compared with #2 Burton's Biscuits at 10%. (UB is also the #2 snack company in the UK, after Pepsico-owned Walker's Snackfoods.)
United Biscuits is the #2 European biscuit company, while Danone is #1 in that area. UB is partly owned by US cookie maker Kraft (Nabisco).
Rice giant
Ebro Puleva SA, a major Spanish food processing company, has made a bid to acquire US-based Riviana Foods. If successful, the merger will consolidate Ebro Puleva's position as the world's #1 rice processor. The offer is for $390 million.
Riviana Foods is the leading rice processor in the US with brands Mahatma, Success, Carolina, River, S&W, and WaterMaid, along with GourmetHouse wild rice all in the US. The company also sells canned fruit, vegetables, and juice, along with biscuits in Central America.
Ebro Puleva is the result of a 2001 merger between Ebro, a sugar producer, and Puleva, a dairy products company. Its Herba-Rice division's rice brands include Cigala and Oryza. Other businesses include herbs, spices, mushrooms, and alcohol production.
The two companies have had joint rice ventures already. These include Herto (rice cakes), Euryza (Germany), Bosto (Belgium), Phoenix (UK), and Ricegrower Co-operative Australia. Riviana, in addition to selling rice products, sells biscuits, juices, and canned vegetable s in Central America.
Telmex
Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex) completes the purchase of a majority stake in Brazil's #1 long distance telephone company, Embratel. The $400 million deal was with US company MCI, which is selling off some of its assets in a bid to survive.
All this is part of a rapid consolidation of the Latin American telephone and broadband market. The biggest players are Telmex and its sister company America Movil. Both companies have controlling stakes owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.
Telmex started as Mexico's #1 provider of local telephone service. In 2003, Telmex acquire d the assets of AT&T Latin America, and merged its operations in South America with the AT&T ones. Telmex has operations in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, and Peru. Telmex has also announce that it is planning to buy into Brazil's cable TV and Internet firm NET Servicos, an approximately $300 million deal.
America Movil, the #1 mobile phone company in Latin America, with its Tecel division now the leading cell phone company in Mexico. It has also picked up six smaller mobile carriers throughout South America.
Meanwhile, US companies like AT&T, MCI, BellSouth (which sold its operations in Latin America to Spanish Telefonica), and SBC (which once had a stake in America Movil) have retreated from the area.
