House Foods to Acquire Takeda Pharm’s Food Unit

Osaka, Dec. 26 (Jiji Press)–House Foods Corp. will acquire Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.’s food unit for about 30 billion yen, the companies said Monday.

The food unit, Takeda Food Products Ltd., produces nurturing beverage and health food products, including the C100 Vitamin Lemon and the C100 Lemon Water drinks.

By acquiring Takeda Food, House Foods intends to bolster its beverage and healthy food businesses, while Takeda Pharmaceutical aims to focus on its drug business.

The deal will be carried out in two stages. First, Takeda Food’s operations will be transferred to a new company next April, and House Foods will take a 66 pct equity stake in the new company and Takeda Pharmaceutical 34 pct.

House Foods will then buy out Takeda Pharmaceutical’s stake in October 2007.

In the year that ended last March, Takeda Food generated sales of 37.5 billion yen. House Foods’ consolidated sales in the year totaled 184.9 billion yen.END