Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble is buying Merck, a German consumer health business, for roughly €3.4 billion euro, or $4.2 billion."We like the steady, broad-based growth of the OTC health care market and are pleased to add the consumer health portfolio and people of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, to the P&G family," P&G CEO David Taylor says in a statement.
The deal will allow the company to expand its consumer health care business by adding vitamin brands such as Seven Seas to its stable of brands that includes Pampers and Vicks cough and cold products.
As part of the deal, P&G will buy a majority stake in the German company's Indian consumer health businesses. It does not yet include Merck's French consumer health business, for which P&G has made a binding offer.