Post Holdings Tees Up IPO for Maker of PowerBar, Protein Shakes

(Bloomberg) -- Packaged-food company Post Holdings Inc. said it has submitted a confidential draft registration for an initial public offering of its active nutrition business as it looks to raise money from a division that’s growing. The number of shares of stock and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined.

Key Insights

• The news shouldn’t come as a surprise. The company said in November it was planning to move ahead with an IPO for the division that sells PowerBar and other high-protein brands. It said at the time that the IPO would represent about 20 percent of the ownership of the new company, though it didn’t give more information on Monday.
• The unit markets and distributes ready-to-drink protein shakes and other athlete-focused products like powders, nutrition bars and supplements. That’s a fast-growing category as changing U.S. consumers increasingly embrace keto diets and lower-carb food choices, triggering rapid growth in an otherwise laggard packaged-food sector.
• For the year ended Sept. 30, the active nutrition business had net income of $101.2 million on net sales of $827.5 million. The company already said that Darcy Horn Davenport, president of the unit, will be CEO of the new public company.

Market Reaction

• Post shares were little changed in early trading on Monday, rising less than 1 percent.
• The company didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
• Get more here.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anne Riley Moffat in New York at ariley17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Crayton Harrison at tharrison5@bloomberg.net, Jonathan Roeder

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