Sara Lee to Shed European Bakery Businesses
Sara Lee has decided to divest its Spanish bakery and French refrigerated dough businesses. A sales process is underway and numerous bids have been received. The Australian frozen desserts business is also under strategic review.
The moves are in line with Sara Lee’s strategy, announced in January 2011, to divide the group into two pure play publicly-traded companies. One company will be focused around the current International Coffee and Tea business, while the other company will be focused on the North American Retail Meats and North American Foodservice businesses.
The US-based group has just agreed to sell its North American refrigerated dough business to Ralcorp for $545m. The sale is expected to close by the end of calendar year 2011. Sara Lee also expects to complete the disposal of its North American Fresh Bakery operations to Grupo Bimbo before the end of September.
