The chairman of the German consumer goods group Beiersdorf AG, which manufactures the Nivea product range, has said that acquisitions in China, Russia, Brazil or India are under consideration and that the cash available for takeovers stands at over E2bn.
Thomas-Bernd Quaas said that if they found companies in these countries that looked good they would "not long delay" in making bids for them, though the amount of cash available did not mean that any bid would be of that order of magnitude. He added that there were no talks underway at the moment. Quaas said Beiersdorf was not seeking to expand its capital on the financial markets and that it had sufficient of its own resources to push forward the group's expansion.
The chairman's statement comes after Beiersdorf reported a rise in second quarter operating profits to E191m with sales rising from E1.3bn to E1.4bn. Market expectations of results were exceeded in Q2 even though restructuring costs increased from E101m to E143m. Beiersdorf's first half sales reached E2.85bn, an increase of 10.6% if exchange rate factors are discounted. There has been rapid acceleration in growth helped by the launch of Nivea Visage DNAge and the relaunch of Nivea Hair Care