Keyline Brands, a UK-based subsidiary of Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL), has acquired the Soft and Gentle deo brand from Colgate-Palmolive for an undisclosed amount. Invoiced sales for the Soft and Gentle brand in 2011 stood at £21million (approximately Rs 187 crore).

The acquisition is being funded by low-cost debt and the impact on GCPL’s consolidated debt/equity ratio is 0.03.

Soft and Gentle is the UK’s fourth largest female deodorant brand in terms of market share and has brand equity with retailers and consumers in the UK. The brand was launched for the UK market in 1976 as the first ‘non-sting’ anti-perspirant for women and has consumer loyalty built over three decades.

In a release Adi Godrej, Chairman, GCPL, said, “The acquisition of Soft and Gentle by Keyline Brands will add profitable scale to our UK business. Over the last few years, Keyline Brands has grown in double digits in a very tough market environment that is witnessing little to no growth. Our UK business has historically had a higher mix of distributed brands than owned brands. Strategically, we have been working on changing the mix towards owned brands and building more scale in the business. With the Soft and Gentle acquisition, the salience of owned brands will become greater than that of distributed brands. We expect this acquisition to be accretive in year one.’’

Anand Rangaswamy, Managing Director of Keyline Brands, added, “We believe we can use the latent brand equity and fragrance technology for developing further range extensions within the female personal care category and creating an integrated above the line support campaign to engage consumers to drive strong growth for the brand. The brand’s distribution will provide synergies for the other brands in our portfolio. Our UK team would be harnessing the synergies and driving the business to its full potential.”

Keyline Brands was acquired by GCPL in October 2005. Keyline operates in the household and personal care space and its portfolio includes a number of important niche brands such as Cuticura, Aapri, Inecto and Touch of Silver.

Purvita@thehindu.co.in

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