Spectrum Brands Holdings’ Home and Garden Division Acquires The Liquid Fence Company, U.S. Market Leader in Consumer Animal Repellents Category
Immediately Accretive Purchase to Enhance Company’s Highest-Margin Business
Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SPB), a global and diversified consumer products company with market-leading brands, announced today its United Industries Home and Garden division located in St. Louis has acquired The Liquid Fence Company, Inc., the U.S. leader in the fast-growing consumer animal repellents market. Financial terms of the accretive, all-cash transaction were not disclosed.
With a broad and expanding product line, proprietary formulations and solid retailer relationships, the Liquid Fence brand has generated market leading performance in the U.S. consumer animal repellents market estimated to be growing at more than double the rate of the overall lawn and garden category. Liquid Fence’s flagship product, Liquid Fence Deer & Rabbit Repellent, is the number-one product of its kind in the U.S.
“Liquid Fence gives us a new, complementary and leadership position in a rapidly expanding segment of the $1.5 billion U.S. retail lawn and garden controls market,” said Dave Lumley, President and Chief Executive Officer of Spectrum Brands Holdings. “We see excellent revenue growth potential, given our Home and Garden division’s strength in the lawn and garden category and the impressive growth rate of the animal repellents category. Liquid Fence fits well within Home and Garden’s many core strengths, including liquid production, regulated products and distribution overlap.
“This textbook, tuck-in acquisition fits perfectly with our stated strategy to seek synergistic, bolt-on acquisitions that expand our product line with strong, complimentary brands and categories, increase and extend our market penetration leveraging the Spectrum Value Model, and provide for quick and major manufacturing, distribution and SG&A synergies,” Mr. Lumley said. “The transaction is immediately accretive, and the synergies we expect quickly will result in an even more attractive multiple paid for the business.”
Genesis Capital, LLC acted as financial advisor to Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc., while Barnes & Thornburg LLP provided legal counsel.
About United Industries
United Industries Corporation, based in St. Louis, Missouri and with fiscal 2013 net sales of $390 million, is the leading manufacturer of value-brand consumer products for the home, lawn and garden insect and weed control markets in the United States. The company offers innovative products of outstanding quality, so consumers benefit from easier insect and weed control solutions. The brands – Spectracide®, Garden Safe®, Hot Shot®, Cutter®, Repel® and Black Flag® – are well recognized by consumers for delivering exceptional value and trusted results. For more information, visit www.UnitedIndustriesCorporation.com.
About Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc.
Spectrum Brands Holdings, a member of the Russell 2000 Index, is a global and diversified consumer products company and a leading supplier of consumer batteries, residential locksets, residential builders’ hardware, faucets, shaving and grooming products, personal care products, small household appliances, specialty pet supplies, lawn and garden and home pest control products, and personal insect repellents. Helping to meet the needs of consumers worldwide, our Company offers a broad portfolio of market-leading, well-known and widely trusted brands including Rayovac®, Kwikset®, Weiser®, Baldwin®, National Hardware®, Pfister™, Remington®, VARTA®, George Foreman®, Black & Decker®, Toastmaster®, Farberware®, Tetra®, Marineland®, Nature’s Miracle®, Dingo®, 8-in-1®, FURminator®, Littermaid®, Spectracide®, Cutter®, Repel®, Hot Shot® and Black Flag®. Spectrum Brands’ products are sold by the world’s top 25 retailers and are available in more than one million stores in approximately 140 countries. Based in Middleton, Wisconsin, Spectrum Brands Holdings generated net sales of approximately $4.1 billion in fiscal 2013.