Glanbia spending £265m to buy loss-making SlimFast

IRISH food firm Glanbia is forking out $350m (£265m) to buy SlimFast, the weight loss and health and wellness brand that’s popular across the US, UK and Ireland.

The price tag for the loss-mak- ing business is below the $400m (£303m) speculated figure that was placed on SlimFast when its current owners — Kainos Capital and Unilever — put it up for sale at the start of the year.

SlimFast markets a range of ready-to-drink shakes, powders, bars and snacks, as well as a range of new products.

The sale to Glanbia underscores how far the value of the SlimFast brand has slumped in the past two decades.

Florida-based SlimFast, founded in 1977 by Thompson Medical, used to be wholly-owned by Unilever, which paid $2.6bn (£2bn) for the company in 2000.

But the acquisition quickly soured for the consumer goods giant.

In 2005, Unilever slashed the value of SlimFast by £570m under Dutch and UK accounting standards, and then by another £175m under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), acknowledging the acquisition was a failure.

Later that year, Unilever took another £310m write-down on SlimFast. Sales had slumped 20% in 2004, hit by the popularity of the Atkins Diet.

Glanbia chief executive Siobhan Talbot said that the SlimFast business will be an “adjacency” to the group’s existing performance nutrition portfolio.