Corning Inc. said Wednesday that AEA Investors Inc. dropped its offer to buy Corning’s consumer housewares unit for $825 million, because of worries that economic turmoil in Asia will hurt the unit’s sales next year.
The move, two months after Corning agreed to cut the price from $975 million, sets back its plans to shed the unit as it focuses on its faster-growing optical-fiber business.
Corning said that it has identified several other potential buyers and plans to sell the maker of Pyrex and Corning Ware cooking dishes and Revere Ware pots and pans by early next year.
Analysts see Rubbermaid Inc. and Newell Co. of Freeport, Ill., as potential buyers, adding Corning will probably have to settle for less than the unit’s $700 million in annual revenue.
“Obviously they’re not going to get the price they were originally trying to get,” said William Gorman, an analyst at PNC Institutional Investments in Philadelphia. “I remember when they announced the deal (in August), there were a lot of us who said, `This is too good to be true’–and it was too good to be true.”
Corning shares fell $2.37, to $39.94.
