Unilever is selling the bulk of its tea business to a private equity firm for about $5.1 billion.
The deal with CVC Capital Partners will hand over 34 of Unilever’s tea brands, including Lipton, Brooke Bond and PG Tips, along with 11 factories and tea estates in three countries. Unilever will retain the Lipton business in Indonesia, India and Nepal, as well as the ready-to-drink Lipton iced tea business it operates in the U.S. in partnership with PepsiCo.
Unilever had explored the sale of its tea division for more than two years. The difficulty is that its desire to hang onto the more profitable parts of the business made the prospect less attractive, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The sale is seen as part of Unilever’s broad strategy to divest slow-growth legacy brands or categories, and concentrate more on ones with a perceived higher growth potential, such as plant-based alternative proteins.
