Jeyes management poised to clean up

The owner of household products group Jeyes – maker of Wet Ones wipes and Bloo toilet cleaner – was today said to be eyeing a possible sale worth £150m (€219m).

Private equity firm Legal & General Ventures has employed NM Rothschild to advise it on its options for Jeyes, the Daily Telegraph reported.

A sale would mean large windfalls for the Jeyes management team which owns 21% of the company, whose range also includes toilet cleaner Parozone and a string of own-brand cleaning products.

The report said that L&G was considering keeping parts of the business and selling off other divisions, with cleaning products groups McBrides and Reckitt Benckiser among likely possible bidders.

A private equity firm may also be tempted to get involved in a secondary buyout, the newspaper said.

Jeyes was bought by L&G in 2002 for £91m (€132.9m) from IWP International. In an unusual deal, L&G bought 44% of the shares, IWP kept a 35% stake with the remainder being held by the management team which includes chief executive Mike Colley and non-executive chairman David Callear.

No one from L&G or Jeyes was available for comment today.