Health and Healthcare

Nestle Dumps Jenny Craig

As part of it ongoing efforts to trim down by shedding weaker brands, Swiss food giant Nestle has announced that it will sell most of its Jenny Craig unit to private equity firm North Castle Partners for an undisclosed sum.

Jenny Craig offers packaged foods and runs weight loss centers. Nestle, the world’s largest food group, purchased Jenny Craig in 2006 from private equity groups ACI Capital and MidOcean Partners for $600 million in an effort to bulk up its Nutrition unit. But since the economic downturn, Jenny Craig has struggled to remain profitable.

This sale includes Jenny Craig businesses in North America, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the Pacific. The Jenny Craig brand in France is not part of the transaction.

Connecticut-based North Castle Partners, which focuses on health and wellness businesses, said it plans to combine the brand with the Curves International fitness club chain, which it bought in August 2012. Though both the brands will continue to operate independently, they will be overseen by the same chief executive, Monty Sharma, who currently wields the reins at Curves.

Nestle CEO Paul Bulcke told investors in early October that the company would be disposing of underperforming brands, though he declined to name them. Reportedly, Nestle is seeking to unload its PowerBar energy bars brand as well. The company sold its Peters Ice Cream brand to a private equity firm in June, and it shed the Carola and Val Saint Lambert bottled water brands in France in July.

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