SSL bid alert as predators circle

THE company that makes Durex condoms and Dr Scholl sandals, SSL International, is believed to be on bid alert after selling its antiseptics and surgical gloves business to a management team for £173m.

The company has identified at least three potential bidders for the remainder of the business, including Anglo-Dutch consumer group Reckitt Benckiser, with which it held talks last year.

Reckitt withdrew over concerns that it would be unable to dispose of SSL's non-consumer brands.

SSL, advised by Lazards' London-based chairman Marcus Aegis, believes that America's Kimberly-Clark, owner of Kotex and Huggies and Nivea's German owner, Beiersdorf, may also be interested in the business.

SSL's brands generate annual profits worth at least £20m and Lazards believes a successful bidder could strip £100m of costs out and that a successful bid would need to be worth more than £4 a share. SSL closed at 318p on Friday.