If you eat yogurt or drink bottled water, there's a good chance you've had Danone products. Now add Silk almond milk, Horizon organic milk and Earthbound Farm salads to that list.
The French-based Danone announced Thursday it plans to acquire WhiteWave, a Denver-based natural foods giant, in a deal worth more than $10 billion.
WhiteWave Foods has its North American headquarters in Broomfield and runs a test kitchen and research-and-development facility in Louisville's Colorado Technology Center.
Here's Reuters on the deal:
The purchase will help the French company to pursue affluent consumers by adding WhiteWave's popular health food offerings such as Silk almond milk, Earthbound Farm Organic salad and Horizon organic milk to its product range as it struggles with setbacks in more challenging markets such as Brazil and Russia.
It is the first major transaction by Emmanuel Faber who took over as Danone's chief executive in 2014 and has vowed to return the group to "strong profitable and sustainable growth" by 2020.
Danone, best known for its yoghurts Activia and Actimel, said it was offering $56.25 per share in cash to value WhiteWave's equity at $10.4 billion, making it Danone's largest acquisition since the purchase of Dutch baby foods group Numico in 2007.
The deal still needs to be finalized by shareholders.
This is just the latest Colorado natural foods company (natural foods are $$$$ here). Earlier this year, Justin's, maker of all natural nut butters, was bought by Hormel, which also makes Spam and Skippy.
