Newell Rubbermaid buying Coleman parent company

Newell Rubbermaid announced Monday that it is buying the parent of the Coleman Co., and company officials said in a conference call with analysts that there will be few immediate job cuts at the companies’ operating divisions.

Newell Rubbermaid, based in Atlanta, is buying Jarden to form a $16 billion consumer products giant called Newell Brands.

Stockholders of Jarden will receive $21 in cash per share and 0.862 of a share of Newell Rubbermaid stock. Jarden shareholders will own about 45 percent of the combined company.

Jarden acquired Coleman in 2004, when it bought the troubled Sunbeam company. Much of the production of the iconic 100-plus-year-old Wichita company has moved to China in recent decades, and the headquarters moved to Golden, Colo., in 2011.

But some company operations remain at the 3600 N. Hydraulic plant.

A message left with Coleman for comment was not returned.

Newell Rubbermaid owns a sizable plant in Winfield.

Both Jarden and Newell have bought dozens of high-profile niche consumer companies in the past decade or so, from K2 skis to Ball canning jars to Jostens class rings. Jarden had sales of $10 billion, while Newell Rubbermaid has sales of $6 billion.

Newell CEO Michael Polk will be CEO of the new company.

As part of the purchase, Polk said, the new company would look for $500 million in cost savings over four years.

But Polk emphasized on a call with analysts Monday that the new company would generally leave the operating subsidiaries alone as it sought to pay down the debt it used to make the deal work. He said there was relatively little overlap between the brands, so there is little to be gained from cutting jobs in the many operating divisions.

The cost savings would come from cutting duplicated corporate staff, trimming some of the new company’s warehouses and greater scale in procurement and logistics, he said.

In a few years, he said, company officials will look more closely at eliminating any overlap in products and creating some centralized functions.

“We do believe there are opportunities to create enterprise-wide capabilities that are shared across the two companies,” Polk said. “Our focus will be around those things that create value.

“But we don’t envision in the near term that we will make any changes on the operating side of the business. It’s really quite critical that the organizations continue to focus and deliver.”

This story was originally published December 14, 2015 at 10:11 AM with the headline "Newell Rubbermaid buying Coleman parent company."