Quaker Oats sales spree in the cards? PepsiCo's spinoff scenarios.(News)

Crain's Chicago Business, February, 2003

Byline: JAMES B. ARNDORFER In six months, PepsiCo Inc. will be free to unload some of the food businesses it picked up in its acquisition of Quaker Oats Co. in August 2001. PepsiCo bought Chicago-based Quaker for its Gatorade sports drink, and it likely will hang onto foods that fit with PepsiCo's Frito-Lay snack unit, like granola bars and rice cakes.

But it is widely expected to start marketing and entertaining bids for lines such as Quaker Oatmeal, Cap'n Crunch cereal and Aunt Jemima syrup. While Purchase, N.Y.-based PepsiCo says it's committed to keeping the Quaker brands, industry experts don't buy that; one source says the company will seek about $6 billion for the lines it divests. The sale of those brands to other large food companies could set...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.