Reckitt Benckiser offloads Scholl Footwear Brand as it focuses on core business streams
Consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser has completed an agreement with Aurelius to licence out the Scholl Footwear brand as it continues to focus on its health, hygiene and home sectors.
The company saw revenue in its portfolio brands fall by two per cent to £316m, and decided not to include Scholl’s performance in its like-for-like revenue results.
Speaking on a call with investors this morning, Rakesh Kapoor, chief executive officer, said that health, hygiene and home have an “inherent” connection, which forms the core of the business, and that Reckitt Benckiser will continually evaluate whether it will offload other portfolio brands, which mostly consist of detergents and fabric softeners.
“If you think about the essential non-branded business, they [portfolio brands] all have a role to play in Reckitt Benckiser. But as any responsible management and leadership our job is to constantly look at which is the best way forward for our portfolio.”
The FMCG giant said that it expects to continue to see decline due to the small size of the portfolio brands business and the highly competitive and weak market conditions.
Overall revenue was down seven per cent to £2.37bn, which Kapoor hailed as a “robust performance” in tougher markets in the third quarter.
“Looking ahead, our objective remains to deliver growth which outperforms our markets,” he commented. “Although conditions will remain challenging. I continue to expect that the strength of our brands and the quality of our innovations will deliver our full year revenue targets.”
Despite the drop in revenue, sales at the makers of Nurofen and Durex rose three per cent, driven by strong consumer health performance.