Unilever NV said Monday it will buy Kibon, Brazil’s biggest maker of ice cream, for $930 million in cash from Philip Morris Cos., adding to a string of recent expansions that have made Unilever the world’s biggest ice cream company.
Unilever said the deal will give it market leadership in Latin America, a market now worth $1.6 billion a year, and one that Unilever expects to double in the next decade. It also will purchase Philip Morris’ 50 percent share of a Brazil-based ice cream joint venture called Sorvane.
Sao Paulo-based Kibon sells about 60 percent of the ice cream sold in Brazil, where consumption is now relatively low but ripe for expansion, analysts said. Tim Potter, an analyst with Merrill Lynch & Co., said Brazilians on average eat roughly 5 percent of the average American’s ice cream consumption.
“It’s not often can you buy a 60 percent share of a market with 160 million people that could double in the next 10 years,” Potter said.
