Table of Contents
EL PASO, Texas — Helen of Troy Ltd. plans to buy the PUR water filtration product business from Procter & Gamble Co.
The acquisition includes the global PUR trademark, its current and future product line, assets related to the operations of the PUR business, manufacturing equipment and more than 200 patents, Helen of Troy said Tuesday.
Plans call for the deal, terms of which weren’t disclosed, to be completed by the end of this year, pending regulatory approvals, according to Helen of Troy, whose offerings span such categories as personal care, health care, home environment and household consumer products.
Sold throughout the United States, PUR’s water purification products include faucet-mount systems and filters, pitcher systems and filters, and refrigerator filters. Sales for the 12 months ending Dec. 31, 2012, are projected to top $110 million.
"We are very excited to add the PUR business to the Helen of Troy family. Globally, water purification is an important consumer need, and water purity is a high-profile issue," stated Gerald Rubin, Helen of Troy chairman and chief executive officer. "The residential water purification category has seen strong organic growth in North America in recent years. PUR is the market leader in the U.S. faucet-mount and refrigerator filter categories and a strong player in water pitcher filtration systems."
Rubin called the acquisition "a natural fit" for Helen of Troy’s health care and home environment segment.
"The category is a close adjacency to that division’s current customer base, target audience and product focus areas," he explained. "PUR adds an important brand to our strong portfolio of well-recognized and widely trusted brands for our retail partners and consumers and is in line with our overall corporate strategy of adding businesses with value-added consumables, such as the proprietary filters that are important in this category. Through our expertise in product sourcing and long-standing commitment to new product development, we are confident the PUR business will be an integral and important component of Helen of Troy."
P&G has owned the PUR brand for a dozen years. "Since acquiring PUR in 1999, P&G has grown the business and invested in the brand. It has outstanding products, a powerful equity, a strong market position and a compelling pipeline of new initiatives," commented Tom Finn, president of P&G Global Personal Health Care. "But after determining the water purification category is not core to P&G’s long-term portfolio, we are pleased to sell it to a company for whom it is a close fit and where it will receive greater focus."
