It comes as Mondelēz restructures its global biscuits business.
“We are announcing a proposed change to our biscuit business, predominantly in Finland and Baltics, which will allow us to focus our company’s core portfolio and create more fuel for growth,” said Jutta Karppi, managing director of Mondelēz Finland.
Power brand focus in Finland
She said the sale of the three brands would allow Mondelēz to focus on power brands such as Oreo, Belvita, TUC and Marabou.
“We have a great ability to drive growth with our power brands across the globe and I am eager to see brands like Oreo and TUC reach their full potential in Finland too,” she said.
According to Euromonitor Interntional, Mondelēz Finland Oy led the Finnish biscuits & snack bars market with a 34% value share in 2015. But it said Mondelēz has been “greatly challenged” by the domestic player Fazer Makeiset, which in 2015 held 22% of the market.
Fazer: Brands coming home
Fazer was the original owner of the three biscuit brands and launched Domino in 1953, Jaffa in 1969 and Fanipala in 1997.
It sold its biscuits business Fazer Keksit, which owned the brands, to Danone in 1995. That company was renamed to LU Suomi.
Mondelēz’s predecessor firm Kraft Foods acquired LU from Danone in 2007 - including the three brands - for almost $6bn.
Fazer said buying back the brands was an extention of the firm’s acquisition of a biscuit production site in Vantaa from Mondelēz’s predecessor firm Kraft Foods in 2012.
Fazer called Domino Finland’s “most valued” biscuit brand. The product is widely described online as “the Finnish Oreo”.
“The return of these classic favorite biscuits to Fazer’s portfolio offers us excellent opportunities. We constantly develop our offering based on changing consumer needs. For example, snacking is an important new area for us where biscuits are in a key position,” said Fazer Confectionery managing director Rolf Ladau.
Biscuits: Mondelēz net revenues by geography 2015
Latin America – 5.4%
Asia-Pacific – 4.3%
EEMEA – 1.8%
Europe – 8.2%
North America – 18.8%
[Source: Mondelēz annual report]
The acquisition was for the brand trademarks only with no production facilities included. Financial details were not disclosed.
Mondelēz trims brand portfolio
Mondelēz recently agreed to sell multiple brands such as Terry's and Carambar and five production sites in France to French investment firm Eurazeo, reducing its European manufacturing capacity by around 10%.
Euromonitor analyst Jack Skelly said earlier this week that more brands were likely to be sold off.
Mondelēz this week posted a 16.8% decline in net revenues in its first quarter results, representing 2.1% organic growth.
In global biscuits, Mondelēz registered 2.5% organic growth in Q1 and grew or held market share for 80% of its biscuit revenues.
Biscuits are the company’s biggest category and accounted for 34% of sales in 2015.