ITC acquires Nimyle floor cleaner, forays into home care space

Kolkata: ITC Ltd has acquired floor cleaning brand Nimyle from Kolkata-based Arpita Agro Products for an undisclosed amount, marking the cigarette-biscuits-hotel major's entry into the home care segment.

ITC confirmed the deal refusing to share further details. Nimyle is the second largest brand in the floor cleaning segment in West Bengal and Odisha while has recently entered the North and selling through e-commerce firms like Amazon and Big Basket.

As per industry estimates, the small-sized deal will allow ITC the scope to build the category in East before taking it national. ITC has been acquiring brands in the FMCG segment which largely have a regional presence at low prices as part of its strategy to expand presence.

As part of this strategy, it had acquired the B Natural brand of packaged juices from Bengaluru-based Balan Natural Food and subsequently relaunched it with ambitions to overtake the top two firms, Dabur and PepsiCo. It last year acquired the once popular Charmis skin care brand from Colgate-Palmolive.

Three years back, it made a mid-sized acquisition by purchasing Savlon and Shower to Shower brands from Johnson & Johnson for around Rs 200-250 crore.

ITC is targeting Rs 1 lakh crore sales from the FMCG business by 2030 and company executives have earlier indicated it may enter into every possible FMCG category to achieve this. The packaged food business is at present driving the sales of the FMCG business.