Owners United Biscuits consider sale savory snack activities

Private equity firms Blackstone Group LP and PAI Partners SAS have appointed Credit Suisse Group to work on a potential sale of the salty snacks arm of their cakes-to-peanuts business United Biscuits Ltd. in a process that could fetch as much as £500 million ($784 million).

However, a source stressed Tuesday, March 13, that the co-owners had taken no final decision to sell the business separately from its immediate parent company and that any auction would be unlikely to begin for several months.

Blackstone and PAI's attempt to sell the United Biscuits snacks division comes a full year after a previous attempt to sell the whole company for more than £2 billion crumbled when China's Bright Food Group Co. Ltd. withdrew from the process.