Bright Food Group Co. agreed to sell Weetabix Ltd. to U.S. cereal maker Post Holdings Inc. in a deal valued at about 1.4 billion pounds ($1.8 billion).
The deal was confirmed by Bright Food’s spokesman Pan Jianjun by phone on Tuesday. Bright Food owns a 60 percent stake in Weetabix, while Baring Private Equity Asia Ltd. holds the remaining 40 percent.
Bright Food’s acquisition of Weetabix in 2012 was one of several deals it made with foreign food companies as China’s second-largest food company attempted to expand its global footprint. It said it wanted to grow the Weetabix brand in China and overseas and floated the idea of listing the cereal maker in 2014, but it never gained enough traction in penetrating the Chinese market where consumers traditionally eat hot breakfasts.
Weetabix gets the majority of its sales from the U.K., which accounted for 290 million pounds of its 346 million pounds of revenue in the year ended Jan. 2, 2016, according to financial statements. Total sales dropped 1.6 percent from the year-earlier period, and profit fell 15 percent to 84.6 million pounds.
Representatives for Post didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Bright Food’s Pan said that Weetabix’s sales in China rose sixfold in the past year in an email in February. He said that overseas acquisitions remain an important part of the company’s strategy to become an “internationally influential, multinational company.”
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