Merger Sally Unilever to copy P&G? ?

Sally sleep energy is activated

The reason why Unilever is willing to spend a lot of money to buy the Sally Group business is closely related to the strong dormancy energy of the business of Sally.

The American Sara Lee Group (SaraLeeCorp.) is one of the top 500 in the world. It has already rushed to China as early as 1992. Sally is based in Fujian in China. Just as other companies were struggling with a paper license, as one of the first three-level MLM companies in the country in 1996, Sally’s wholly-owned company in China, “Fujian Sally Daily Chemical Products Co., Ltd.” has already been in China. It has multiple advantages in policy, capital, geography, manpower and products, and has familiar experience with Japanese chemical industry policies that other Japanese companies do not have.

The Japanese chemical industry has long been affected by the volatility of policy factors, and enterprises with policy advantages have strong first-mover advantages in fierce competition. Early foreign-invested Japanese companies must enter China. Due to policy restrictions, they must take the form of a curve, either by joint ventures with research institutes or with Chinese-funded Japanese companies. In the late 1980s, P&G and United China's two giants.

Unilever and Shanghai Light Industry Group jointly established Shanghai Lihua Company; and P&G found Hutchison Whampoa to establish an investment company, P&G and Huang, and used it as a springboard to build Guangzhou Import and Export Trade in Guangzhou Soap Factory and Guangzhou Economic Development Zone. The head office and the three parties jointly established Guangzhou Procter & Gamble Co., Ltd. Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Sally are both the top 500 echelons. Compared with the joint ventures of Unilever and P&G, Sally is a lucky one. She won the “sole proprietorship” in the early days. In order to withdraw from this transnational marriage, P&G continued to buy shares and pay a premium to Chinese partners from 1997 to 2004, and finally changed to a free body.

In a sense, the policy advantage of Lucky Sally can help Sally to break through the encirclement, and together with Avon and Fudi, they are among the first three single-level direct selling companies in the country. It is by virtue of this unique policy advantage that Sally has also brought the capital and geographical advantages to the extreme.

In the past years, Sally has closed the Hong Kong factory and merged into the Fuzhou factory. Sally Logistics in Fuzhou can be transferred not only to mainland China, but also to Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Singapore and other surrounding areas.

Sally has also taken advantage of the low labor and labor costs in China's transition period. On this basis, the manufacturing and operation of cosmetics and daily necessities, the advantages of manpower and products are clearly in place.

Cheng also policy, defeat policy. In 1998, a paper direct ban broke Sally into the cold palace. Although she was approved for direct sales, she also buried a frozen foreshadowing in the market.

Unilever's acquisition of Sally's personal care business is a worthwhile deal. In the midst of a sleepy beggar, Unilever unearthed Sally's policy and historical reasons. The huge energy of freezing. If Unilever is a dancing elephant, Sally's personal care section is like a dormant winter snake, which needs the magical power of spring and sun to activate.

"Bolman" merger mark

Unilever's first large-scale mergers and acquisitions inspired people's curiosity about the new CEO Paul Polman, who took over in January this year.

In the Unilever's old rival P&G, he has been working for 26 years, and has been experienced by Nestlé's chief financial officer, Polman, who is a veteran of the fast-moving industry. From the CFO to the CEO's transformation journey, Polman needs to prove himself with practical actions.

Judging from the few fires that Polman took up and burned, Polman is working hard to expand M&A to achieve economies of scale. The merger madman Polman has given the Japanese chemical industry three major imprints of “quick response”, “based on China” and “understanding demand”.

The first is a quick response.

Polman's predecessor, Xia Si, is accustomed to doing subtraction, and adopts three fires of selling assets, dismissing employees and raising prices to eliminate Unilever's phased crisis to achieve annual income growth.

Under the command of Xia Sike, 19 Unilever sub-brands were sold. The outstanding example is that Bestfoods, which had spent huge sums of money and acquired for several years, had to be divested at $24 billion. Experts joked that it is "selling children and selling women for the New Year."

Subtraction thinking makes Unilever's earnings report look slimming bodybuilding effect. In essence, the extreme practice of cutting meat weight loss has fallen into Unilever's city, which has allowed Unilever products to lose their channel expansion power. Unilever single brand The product faces the contract of the competitor's joint fleet.

As the first externally introduced CEO of Unilever, Polman apparently saw the problems of the past and actively responded to the market in the first place.

As the analysis shows, only the main brand of Unilever, it is likely to lose the battle for the supermarket shelves in the fierce competition, like the full impact of the elite cavalry facing the sea, land and air forces will also return. Polman's quick response was that he saw the effect of "addition" through mergers and acquisitions. Although the subtraction method can establish the core industry strategy, this is also the idea that Unilever has been proud of since 1984. However, with the changes of the times, it is better to avoid the huge profits that can be created by the four sides. Respond to the market and take the initiative to find the right M&A target.

As a Fortune 500 company, Sally, who produces and sells more than 20 kinds of home care products and car aromatherapy products in the two brands of “Keli Li” and “Xiang Bi Piao” in China, obviously meets Unilever’s search for prey. standard.

On the basis of “quick response” to capture prey, Polman also achieved “based on China”. Bollman himself used the "Unilever's sixth largest R&D center opening ceremony" to communicate with the relevant leaders of the Shanghai Changning District Government, suggesting that Unilever's "good intentions" for China's localization.

As Bollman demonstrated, the Shanghai R&D Center is a major symbol of Unilever's foothold in the Chinese market. Unilever closed the Chicago and Japan Institutes, but spent 50 million euros to protect the Shanghai R&D Center's sixth largest in the world. status.

In the past few years, Unilever moved the factory to Hefei because of cost control. This time, Polman merged Hefei and Shanghai. This makes Unilever's strategic layout in China clear: Shanghai is the management and research center, and Hefei and other places in Anhui are the production and processing bases.

The battle between the two strong will enter a climax

Unilever’s China strategy also affects the international market. The largest deal for Unilever’s global body care business and European detergent business may be just a prelude, followed by a broader international market strategy adjustment. Will appear.

With Borman’s extraordinary attention to the Chinese market and his focus on consumer research, there are indications that Unilever’s strategic adjustment from the inside out begins with a new round of competition with the old rival P&G. Unveiled.

In the quiet 9 years of Unilever, Unilever’s rivalry, the same as the daily giant P&G, long-sleeved and good-selling, won the Gillette Gillete, German Wella, toiletries Ikalu, Dan Brace Tampax Such products have rapidly expanded the scope of business.

Details of the divestiture of the remaining household goods business have not yet been introduced in the next acquisition offer of the Sally Group, but there are signs that air care, footwear care, pesticides and non-European cleaning brands will be further divested. It is conceivable that once the strong sales products in China such as air care and footwear care are included in the Unilever military camp, the influence of Unilever's strong brand will appear, and the dispute between the two powers will also enter a climax.