PHOENIX -- Consumer-products giant Dial Corp. said Wednesday it had completed the acquisition of the Renuzit air-freshener brand of Drackett Co. from S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. for an undisclosed price.
'The Renuzit brand complements Dial's existing portfolio of household products and immediately positions the company as a leader in the rapidly growing air freshener market,' said John W. Teets, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Dial.
Renuzit generated U.S. and Canadian sales of about $115 million in 1992. 'We have acquired Renuzit at an attractive price and expect the brand to make a positive contribution to earnings in 1993,' Teets said.
Dial said the Renuzit brand, which includes the Adjustable, Aerosol and RoomMate products, has a 91 percent awareness among U.S consumers. The air-freshner market has annual sales of $1 billion.
Dial said it will aggressively continue the rollout of Renuzit LongLast Electric.
Under the deal, Dial has acquired the Renuzit trademarks, patents, technology and equipment, but no plants or facilities. It said it plans to market additional products under the Renuzit brand name.
The Renuzit deal comes after two years of moves by Dial to shed non- core assets. It said in February its board had authorized management to explore a sale of its transportation manufacturing and service parts segment with a number of firms which had expressed interest in the unit.
The board also gave approval at that point for Dial to begin work to spin off the unit, which accounts for about a quarter of Dial's $3.5 billion in annual revenues, through an initial public offering of stock.
Dial had announced in late 1991 that it was studying a plan to spin off or dispose of its financial and insurance operations and its transportation-manufacturing and service parts business. It subsequently spun off the financial and insurance businesses as Greyhound Financial.
Phoenix-based Dial, citing strong performance in all of its businesses, previously reported first-quarter earnings of $14.6 million, or 33 cents a share, compared with a loss of $98.2 million in the year- ago quarter, when it took a $115 million for changing its accounting for retirement benefits.
First-quarter revenues totaled $778.8 million, off slightly from $784.5 million in the prior-year quarter.
