In a video titled “Procter & Gamble to Divest 100 Brands,” Euromonitor International discusses the global company’s recently announced plans to divest itself of up to 100 of its brands following its financial results released on August 1, 2014.
Oru Mohiuddin, senior beauty and personal care research analyst for Euromonitor, says in the video, “Procter & Gamble announced that it is going to divest 100 brands. This is as part of its ongoing restructure process that we have been seeing in the last few years. The decision to divest these 100 brands is a good move, but the question is, how does it intend to use these newly released resources going forward?
“One of the challenges that Procter & Gamble has been facing is that it does not have sufficient coverage across the pricing spectrum in comparison to some of its leading competitors; for example, Unilever in hair care has a broad-based presence across the pricing spectrum, and this has been one of Unilever’s strengths.
“So, for Procter & Gamble, the recommendation is to use its newly released resource to develop [a] wider presence across the pricing spectrum,” Mohiuddin concludes.
Speculation is that many of P&G’s larger beauty and personal care brands—such as CoverGirl, Gillette, Pantene, Olay, SK-II, Gucci, Hugo Boss, Dolce & Gabbana, Head & Shoulders, Crest, Old Spice, Wella, Secret and others—will not be affected, but P&G CEO A.G. Lafley told The Wall Street Journal, "I’m not interested in size. I'm interested in whether we are the preferred choice of shoppers."